10 Best Indie Movies Of 2016 (So Far)

10. Creative Control

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 62%

Set in a very near-future New York, microbudget techno-drama Creative Control follows overworked advertising executive David (writer/director/star Benjamin Dickinson) as he gets involved in a high-profile marketing campaign for a new generation of augmented reality glasses. His interest in the device soon becomes an obsession as he takes to using them to escape his otherwise mundane life.

Feeling trapped in his relationship with his yoga teacher girlfriend, David decides to use the glasses to develop a life-like avatar of Sophie, all-round dream girl and partner of his best friend. Before long, fantasy and reality begin to blur for David, and he risks losing everyone that cares about him for the sake of his imagination.

The premise is most definitely reminiscent of 2013's Her (both are technically sci-fi films but the heart of both movies is the people themselves rather than the technology they use), though in place of the vivid near-future Los Angeles Spike Jonze paints we are taken to a black and white New York. The film has a crisp, polished look that almost belies its roots as an independent film, though the content (described by some critics as Nouveau Brooklyn) is unashamedly indie.

While it teeters on the edge of becoming a love letter to NYC hispter culture at times, Dickinson knows when to reel in the pretentiousness and concentrate on an issue becoming more and more prevalent with every passing year - our complicated and potentially dangerous relationship with technology.