Rick Alverson is one the most polarizing and distinct voices of American independent cinema. Somewhere between the outsiders of Kelly Reichardt’s early films and the quirky misfits the “mumblecore movement” has finely portrayed over the years, his characters are at once victims of a generational disenchantment and perpetuators of the American malaise that traps them. It might be challenging to like or even remotely empathise with them sometimes, but it is in their grotesque, even sadistic ways of interacting with the world, where Alverson’s critical vision of society resonates most vividly—and tragicomically.