Maybe it’s just a product of my specific schedule, but this Sundance feels like it has more high-concept big swings than usual. I’m seeing a lot fewer of what could be traditionally called “Sundance movies”—usually dramedies about families who learn a thing or two about each other, probably on a…

Gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) is introduced with her hand down a clogged toilet. She will spend a lot of the next two hours cleaning up much worse messes in Rose Glass’ powerful “Love Lies Bleeding,” a sexy, brutal, violent, kinetic piece of filmmaking that’s about, well, love, lies, and…

It’s always tempting to look for themes at Sundance. Art reflects the world in which it was made, and independent cinema often finds commonality through happenstance. At its best, it captures something we’re all feeling or thinking, without even knowing it. There are about a dozen or so films at…

With recent hits like “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” and “Kokomo City,” the NEXT program at Sundance Film Festival continues to feature daring new voices unfettered by storytelling conventions. This year brings three boundary pushing films featuring protagonists, who, in some way, feel they’ve been abandoned, either by a lover,…