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5 Indie Movies This Week: Time and Water, The Last Viking, Barton Fink, & More · Indie Film Weekly

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Indie Film Weekly for the week of May 29th, 2026.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Glenn Reynolds.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: This week in theaters, we've got a documentary that turns melting glaciers into a family story with real emotional weight.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a Danish black comedy about two brothers and a buried bag of stolen money with chaos riding shotgun.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we've got an Argentine psychodrama where one impulsive act on a work trip cracks open an entire life.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you can see one of these in a theater this weekend, please do.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Indie films don't get a long runway, and a strong opening weekend is what keeps them in your town.
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  SPEAKER_00: On demand, I've got a big swing sci-fi romance about trying to erase your feelings and realizing they might erase you.
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  SPEAKER_00: And for our classic, we're celebrating a 35th anniversary Hollywood nightmare about writers, ego, and a hotel that feels like it's sweating secrets.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Want the written version of these pics each week?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I also publish the Indie Film Weekly Newsletter.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same five films in a quick read.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sign up at newsletter.circusroadfilms.com.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let's dive in.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our first film in theaters this week is Time and Water, directed by Sarah Dosa.
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  SPEAKER_00: This documentary follows Icelandic writer Andre Snare Magnuson as he tries to preserve what is vanishing in front of him.
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  SPEAKER_00: Iceland's glaciers are melting.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the film treats that loss as personal, not theoretical.
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  SPEAKER_00: Andre reaches for family archives, photographs, home movies, and stories passed down through generations, and uses them as a bridge between a changing landscape and a changing family.
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  SPEAKER_00: The emotional spine is his grandparents.
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  SPEAKER_00: Their love story and their relationship to the land becomes a kind of measuring stick for what used to feel permanent.
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  SPEAKER_00: Dosa keeps the structure flexible.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's part essay, part memory book, part warning, but it never plays like a scolding.
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  SPEAKER_00: Andre is a great guide because he's curious and clear and sometimes funny, even when he's talking about fear.
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  SPEAKER_00: The film also knows when to stop talking.
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  SPEAKER_00: It lets the wind and ice and quiet do the work.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's a moment-to-moment honesty here that makes the big topic easier to hold.
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  SPEAKER_00: You're not being asked to absorb a pile of facts.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're being asked to feel what it's like to lose something you thought would always be there.
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  SPEAKER_00: If climate anxiety has ever made you feel numb, this is a film that gives that feeling a place to go.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Our second film in theaters this week is The Last Viking, written and directed by Anders Thomas Jensen.
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  SPEAKER_00: This Danish black comedy starts with a straightforward mission and immediately turns it into a mess of family history.
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  SPEAKER_00: Anker has just gotten out after a 15-year prison sentence for bank robbery.
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  SPEAKER_00: Before he went in, he made his brother Manfred bury the stolen money in the forest near their mother's house.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now Anker wants the cash and a restart, but Manfred can't remember where it is.
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  SPEAKER_00: Over the years, Manfred has developed disassociative identity disorder, and his shifting personalities make every attempt at help unpredictable and sometimes dangerous.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Anker's frustration becomes the fuel because he's a guy who thinks force and logic can solve anything, including a mind that won't cooperate.
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  SPEAKER_00: Nikolai Lee Kos plays Anker as a man trying to bully reality into behaving.
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  SPEAKER_00: Mads Mickelson plays Manfred with a performance that's funny, unnerving, and oddly tender, often in the same scene.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Jensen keeps the film moving with escalating plans and worse consequences, but the heart of it is the bond between brothers who can't escape each other.
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  SPEAKER_00: It premiered in Venice and it has that Jensen signature, deadpan humor, sudden volatility, and real emotion hiding under the chaos.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our last indie film in theaters this week is The Currents.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Written and directed by Mili Gross Mumenthaler, it follows Lena, a successful Argentine fashion designer whose world shifts during a work trip to Switzerland.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: After a public moment that should feel like a triumph, she does something shocking.
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  SPEAKER_00: She walks to an icy lake and plunges in.
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  SPEAKER_00: She survives, returns to Buenos Aires, and refuses to explain it to anyone.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: That choice, the silence, becomes the tension.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Lena goes back to meanings, routines, and family life, but something in her no longer fits the story she's been living.
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  SPEAKER_00: The film isn't chasing a tidy psychological answer.
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  SPEAKER_00: It tracks what happens when a single act breaks your relationship to yourself.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can feel Lena watching her own life from a half step away.
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  SPEAKER_00: Isabel Amy Gonzalez Sola plays her with a composed surface and a restless interior, like she's trying to behave correctly while her instincts are changing.
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  SPEAKER_00: Mumenthaler builds pressure through small disruptions, a pause that goes too long, a decision that doesn't match the old pattern, a private memory that keeps resurfacing.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's elegant and unsettling without being showy.
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  SPEAKER_00: The city feels polished, then suddenly claustrophobic.
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  SPEAKER_00: The lake becomes a symbol Lena can't outrun.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you like character-driven films where the drama is internal, but the stakes feel real, this one sticks.
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  SPEAKER_00: So in theaters this week, that's Time and Water, The Last Viking, and The Currents.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Our spotlight indie film on demand this week is The Beast.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Directed by Bertrand Bonello, it's a sci-fi romance built around a cold idea.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: What if society treated strong emotion as a problem to eliminate?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: In a near future Paris, Gabrielle signs up for a process that sends her through past lives to purify her and reduce emotional intensity.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: The film moves across distinct time periods, and in each one, Gabrielle keeps colliding with Louis, a man who feels familiar in ways she can't fully explain.
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  SPEAKER_00: Leia Sedoux plays Gabrielle with a controlled surface and a growing sense of dread, like she can feel something important being filed away.
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  SPEAKER_00: George McKay plays Louis as a shifting presence, sometimes tender, sometimes threatening, and never entirely safe.
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  SPEAKER_00: What makes the movie work is that the concept isn't background.
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  SPEAKER_00: It shapes every choice.
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  SPEAKER_00: Love becomes a liability.
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  SPEAKER_00: Fear becomes currency.
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  SPEAKER_00: The film keeps asking whether removing pain is just another way of removing the self.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's ambitious, strange, and surprisingly direct about what it's afraid of.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you like films that keep evolving while staying locked on emotion, this is a great on-demand pick.
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  SPEAKER_00: You can rent it on Apple TV or Prime Video.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Our indie film classic this week is Barton Fink, celebrating its 35th anniversary.
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  SPEAKER_00: Directed by Joel Cohen and Ethan Cohen, it follows Barton, a New York playwright who gets lured to Hollywood in 1941 after a Broadway hit.
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  SPEAKER_00: He arrives convinced he's going to write something meaningful about the common man.
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  SPEAKER_00: Instead, he is assigned a wrestling picture and immediately hits a wall.
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  SPEAKER_00: Barton moves into the Hotel Earl, a sweltering, decaying place that feels like it's sweating secrets, and he sits at his typewriter producing nothing.
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  SPEAKER_00: The studio system keeps offering polite pressure and empty encouragement, which somehow makes it worse.
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  SPEAKER_00: John Tatura plays Barton as a man who wants to be pure and also wants to be admired, which is a dangerous combo when you're blocked.
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  SPEAKER_00: John Goodman plays Charlie, the friendly neighbor, who talks too much and feels harmless until the film starts tightening around him.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Judy Davis shows up as Audrey, the sharp assistant who becomes Barton's lifeline, then his complication.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: The movie turns creative paralysis into a full-body horror story, but it's also very funny about ego and self-mythology.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever stared at a blank page and decided the world was conspiring against you, this is your nightmare comfort food.
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  SPEAKER_00: You can rent it on Apple TV, Prime Video, or Fendango at home.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that wraps it for the May 29th, 2026 edition of Indie Film Weekly.
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  SPEAKER_00: Subscribe so you don't miss next week.
• 8:23
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• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Until next week, keep it curious, keep it brave, and keep it indie.