Latest / Indie Film Weekly / 5 Indie Movies This Week: Horsegirls, The Kidnapping of Arabella, Ms 45 & More

Transcript

5 Indie Movies This Week: Horsegirls, The Kidnapping of Arabella, Ms 45 & More · Indie Film Weekly

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Indie Film Weekly for the week of July 17, 2026.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Glenn Reynolds.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: This week in theaters, we've got a documentary portrait of a Chicano theater and film pioneer who changed American culture.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a character drama about a young autistic woman and the oddly beautiful world of competitive hobby horse dancing.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we've got an offbeat road movie about a troubled young woman and a seven-year-old who accidentally turns herself into a kidnapping case.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Quick ask before we move on if you can see one of these in the theater this weekend.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Indie films do not survive on good intentions.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: They survive on people buying tickets while the showtimes still exist.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: On demand, I've got a desert crime thriller where a diner full of strangers learns that waiting for a fuel truck can be a very bad life choice.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And for our classic, we're going back to a raw 1981 New York revenge film that still hits like a brick through a window.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Want the written version of these picks each week?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I also publish the Indie Film Weekly Newsletter.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same five films in a quick read.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sign up at newsletter.circusroadfilms.com.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let's dive in.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Our first film in theaters this week is American Pachuco, The Legend of Luis Valdez.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Directed by David Alvarado, this documentary tells the story of Luis Valdez, the writer, director, and activist who helped define Chicano theater and later brought Chicano stories to a much wider film audience.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: The film tracks his path from farm worker communities to the creation of El Teatro Campesino, the theater troop born out of the United Farm Workers Movement.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: That origin matters, because Valdez was not treating art as decoration.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: He was using performance as organizing, education, history, and survival.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: The documentary also follows the path to Zutsuit and La Bamba, showing how one artist kept pushing Latino stories into spaces that were not exactly holding the door open.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: What makes this work is that it's not just a career recap.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's about cultural authorship.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Who gets to tell the story, who gets centered, who gets reduced to a stereotype, and who gets to become mythic.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Valdez comes across as funny, stubborn, generous, and very aware of the battles behind the applause.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: It won the Audience Award at Sundance, which makes sense.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is the kind of documentary that sends you out wanting to watch the work, read the history, and maybe call your most dramatic friend.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Our second indie film in theaters this week is Horse Girls, directed by Lauren Maring.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: It follows Margarita, a 22-year-old autistic woman trying to step into adulthood while her home life becomes more fragile.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Her mother's health is uncertain, and Margarita is caught between wanting independence and knowing that the person who has anchored her may not always be able to.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: She takes a first job at a Halloween store, which is already a perfect indie film workplace because every aisle looks like someone's inner life had a clearance sale.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then she discovers competitive hobby horse dance, a real sport built around choreographed routines performed with stick horses.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: On paper, that sounds like an easy joke.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: The movie knows better.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: For Margarita, this world offers structure, expression, community, and a place where intensity is not a problem to hide.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: The film's strongest move is treating hobby horse dance with sincerity without making it precious.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny because life is funny, but the stakes are real.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Margarita is trying to build a self that can survive change.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: The routines become a way to practice confidence before she knows if she has it.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maring keeps the focus intimate, and the result is a coming-of-age story that does not feel pre-packaged.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is specific, warm, and odd in the best way.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Our last indie film in theaters this week is The Kidnapping of Arabella, directed by Carolina Cavalli.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: This Italian road comedy follows Holly, a restless young woman who feels like she's missed the instructions for normal life.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Then she meets Arabella, a seven-year-old girl with enough confidence for the both of them.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Through a chain of bad timing and worse assumptions, Arabella accidentally fakes her own kidnapping, and Holly winds up on the road with a child who's not nearly as helpless as the situation suggests.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: The plot sounds like chaos, and it is.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the film's engine is the odd couple relationship.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Holly is supposed to be the adult.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Arabella, inconveniently, often seems like the one with a clear plan.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: The trip becomes a strange escape for both of them, away from families, expectations and the adults who think they understand what is happening.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Cavalli has a feel for deadpan absurdity, the kind where people make one small bad decision and then have to spend the next hour pretending it's still manageable.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Chris Pine appears in the cast, which adds another little spark of curiosity, but the real pleasure is watching Holly and Arabella bounce off each other.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a road movie about confusion, loneliness, and the dangerous appeal of being needed by someone, even if that someone is seven and technically missing.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: So in theaters this week, that's American Pachuco, The Legend of Luis Valdez, Horse Girls, and The Kidnapping of Arabella.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Our spotlight indie film on demand this week is The Last Stop in Yuma County, directed by Francis Galapi.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is a lean crime thriller set mostly inside a remote Arizona diner where everyone's waiting for the fuel truck to arrive.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: A traveling knife salesman pulls in low on gas.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then two bank robbers show up after a job, and the room's temperature drops without anyone touching the thermostat.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Soon the diner fills with unlucky locals and passers by, all stuck together because the pumps are dry.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's the setup, and it's a beauty.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: One place, too many people, too many secrets, not enough exits.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Jim Cummings plays the salesman, and he's very good at men trying to stay polite while mentally calculating how doomed they are.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: The film has a great sense of escalation.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Every new arrival changes the balance in the room, and every attempt to keep things calm somehow makes things worse.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny in a dry, nervous way, then suddenly not funny at all.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you like compact thrillers where geography, timing, and bad judgment do most of the work, this is a very satisfying rental.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can rent it on Apple TV, Amazon Video, or Fandango at home.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Our indie film classic this week is Ms.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: 45, directed by Abel Ferrara.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: This 1981 New York Revenge film is grim, stylish, and absolutely not polite.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: It follows Thana, a mute garment worker in the city's fashion district, who is attacked twice in one day.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: After surviving, she begins moving through New York with a gun and a new relationship to fear.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: The film is tough material, and it is not something that I would call casual viewing.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: But as low budget urban cinema, it has real force.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Ferrara shoots the city as a place of constant threat, crowded streets, small apartments, parties, stairwells, corners where danger seems to be waiting because no one bothered to remove it.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Zoe Lund plays Thana with a haunted stillness that becomes more disturbing as the film goes on.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: The performance is mostly physical because Thana does not speak, but you understand the shift in posture, gaze, and movement.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: The film is revenge thriller, exploitation movie, feminist provocation, and punk artifact all at once.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is messy by design and still hard to shake.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to see what early 80s New York Indie filmmaking looked like when it had no interest in smoothing the edges, this is the one.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can watch it on Peacock or rent it on Apple TV or Amazon Video And that wraps it for the July 17, 2026 edition of Indie Film Weekly.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to support the show, do the simple stuff.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Subscribe so you don't miss next week.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Share it with one friend who likes being early.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Rate it because it helps the apps take the show seriously.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Then leave a quick review, even one sentence helps.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Until next week, keep it bold, keep it specific, and keep it indie.