Ironically, Indie Movies All Alike

From their sketched opening credits to obscure pop culture references to painfully hip soundtracks and formulaic plots, “indie” flicks have grown just as many clichés and conventions as their big-budget counterparts, writes Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post. “What started as a fiercely autonomous cinematic response to Hollywood and its dominant genres has become a genre itself.”

By the time Juno—“an extended riff on established indie tropes”— got such Oscar love, “it was painfully clear that the principles that made indies so attractive…had morphed into tired, cynical mannerisms.” Some indie filmmakers defy the conventions of Little Miss Judo Dynamite; think The Station Agent, Frozen River, and The Savages. But they need to drop their bizarre references and overwrought irony in favor of stories with actual emotional truth. (More independent film stories.)