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5 Indie Movies This Week: André Is an Idiot, Heel, The Worst Person in the World, & More · Indie Film Weekly

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Indyfilm Weekly for the week of March 6, 2026.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Glenn Reynolds.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: This week's theater lineup has range.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: We have a documentary that turns a terrifying diagnosis into a blunt, funny, and oddly useful conversation about how we avoid the doctor.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: We have a psychological thriller that starts with an abduction and gets more unsettling the longer it stays inside one house.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we have a hard-charging action story built around a mother doing one thing, getting her kid back.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: For T Vod, we've got a documentary about a downtown New York legend whose life was huge and whose death still raises questions.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And for our classic, we're going back five years to a modern relationship movie that feels like a whole life squeezed into one chapter.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you want these movies to keep existing, show up early in their theatrical run.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Indie films do not get a long leash.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: The box office is the receipt.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: This episode of Indie Film Weekly is brought to you by Circus Road Films, helping independent filmmakers find their audience since 2006.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Learn more at CircusRodefilms.com.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let's dive in.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Our first film in theaters this week is Andre is an Idiot.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Directed by Tony Benna, this is a documentary about Andre Ricciardi, a brilliant, stubborn ad guy who delayed a colonoscopy and then got hit with the news you never want.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Stage four colon cancer.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Andre calls himself an idiot, loudly, often, and the film keeps that same energy.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's not interested in becoming a saint.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's interested in looking straight at what is happening, with jokes, swearing, curiosity, a kind of creative problem solving that feels like a coping mechanism and a superpower at the same time.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of disappearing into private suffering, he teams up with Benna to document the whole ride.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: That includes the medical reality, the fear, the anger, and the awkward moments where friends do not know what to say.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: The movie also leans into Andre's imagination with animated and stylized sections that match how his brain works when he's trying to process the unprocessable.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: The heart of it is simple.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is a person trying to stay himself while time gets shorter.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is funny in a way that never denies the truth.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: It is also weirdly motivating because it keeps circling one idea.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Avoiding the doctor does not make you safer.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Our second indie film in theaters this week is Heal, is directed by Jan Camassa and it stars Stephen Graham as Chris, a husband and father who abducts a 19-year-old hooligan named Tommy.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Tommy wakes up chained in the basement of Chris's isolated suburban home, and the movie makes you sit in that reality without relief.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Chris's wife Catherine, played by Andrea Riseboro, is not a bystander either.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Their young son is in the house too, which adds a layer of dread because every scene has the question, what is this kid learning by watching this?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Chris frames what he is doing as reform.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: He wants to fix Tommy, punish him, reprogram him, whatever word makes it sound less like violence.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Tommy is forced into a grim routine of control and psychological pressure, with the family setting the terms and the clock always running.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: The tension's not just whether Tommy can escape.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's the way the couple's dynamic keeps shifting, like they are performing a marriage while running an experiment.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Kamasa keeps the focus tight so the house becomes a pressure cooker.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can feel the movie asking what happens when people decide they have the right to correct someone.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a thriller, but it's also a story about power and self-justification.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Our last indie film in theaters this week is Protector, directed by Adrian Grunberg.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is an action thriller built around Nikki, a former war hero, who tried to leave violence behind to raise her daughter Chloe in peace.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then everything collapses at once.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Nikki wakes up bound in an abandoned factory and realizes Chloe's been kidnapped.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: From there, the film turns into a race.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Nikki breaks free and she throws herself into the synodies' criminal underworld with one goal find her daughter before time runs out.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Mila Jovovovich plays Nikki with that locked-in forward motion that action movies need.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Nikki is not solving puzzles from a safe distance.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: She's pushing through rooms, shaking down leads, and forcing answers out of people who do not want to give them.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: As she tears into a ruthless crime network, she also becomes a target, drawing heat from law enforcement and the military, who start hunting her like she is the threat.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: The story keeps the pressure on by stacking obstacles, limited time, limited trust, and a widening circle of enemies.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you want a tight, momentum-driven movie that stays focused on a mother's mission, this is your pick.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So in theaters this week, that's Andre is an idiot, heel, and protector.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Our spotlight indie film on TVOD this week is The Big Johnson.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Directed by Lola Rock'n'Rolla, this documentary tracks the life and death of Dean Johnson, a towering figure in downtown New York nightlife who is many things at once: drag queen, rock singer, party promoter, activist, and a person who lived with a level of visibility that could be both armor and exposure.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: The film sketches Dean as someone who craved spaces when safe spaces were not a given, and who pushed against shame with performance, community, and a sheer force of personality.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: It also follows the darker side, addiction, risk, and the hard math of what it costs to live at full volume for years.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: The mystery hanging over this story is his death.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Dean ended up dead in Washington, D.C., and for all his notoriety in New York, he was discovered as a John Doe.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: The documentary does not pretend it can tie everything up.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: It lays out the facts, the contradictions, and the questions people still carry.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: What makes it work is that it does not reduce Dean to a cautionary tale.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: It treats him as a complicated artist and a complicated human being, someone who changed the people around him, even when he was spiraling.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you like music docks, queer history, and New York stories with real bite, this one is worth your time.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can rent it on Apple TV.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Our indie film classic this week is The Worst Person in the World, celebrating its fifth anniversary.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Directed by Joaquim Trier, this is an Oslo set character story that follows Julie as she moves through her late twenties with talent, restlessness, and a scary number of options.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: She changes direction more than once in school, in work, in relationships.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the movie treats that not as a moral failure, but as a real portrait of someone trying to figure out what kind of life will fit.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: The structure is part of the fun, with clear chapters that make the fun feel like a novel you cannot put down.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Julie's love life anchors it, especially her relationship with Axel, an older established cultural figure who wants commitment and time and a clear plan.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Julie wants honesty too, but she also wants room to breathe.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that tension keeps tightening.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Renate Reinsva is the center of gravity here.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: She makes Julie smart and messy and specific, the kind of person you will recognize even if you have never met her.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: The movie has humor, but it also has real ache, especially when choices start becoming irreversible.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever looked at your own life and thought I should be happier than I am, this one lands.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can rent it on Amazon and Apple TV.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that wraps it up for the March 6, 2026 edition of Indie Film Weekly.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening and you want to help the show, do the simple stuff that actually matters.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Subscribe so it shows up automatically.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Share it with one friend who watches movies alone and needs company.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have 30 seconds, rate and review it because that tells the apps this is worth surfacing.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Until next week, keep it bold, keep it curious, and keep it indie.