[3] American eccentric cinema is marked by films that are "deeply concerned with ethics and morality, the obligations of the individual, the effects of family breakdown, and social alienation.
"[3] American eccentric cinema was critically conceived in response to traditional Hollywood and films of popular culture[1] which often had clear, predictable characters and narratives.
Far Out Magazine critic Swapnil Dhruv Bose writes that, "As a response to the suffocating excesses of the mainstream, many directors sought to examine the alienation imposed by modernity through fresh perspectives and unconventional methods.
However, as Kim Wilkins notes, despite the crossovers between the two forms of cinema, American eccentricity "uses irony not primarily for its tonal qualities but, rather, for dramatic and thematic functions".
[1] But while filmmakers of American eccentric cinema position themselves in a critical manner, they also strive to create significant and unique art forms through various techniques and film features employed.
[1] Independent cinema are types of films whose conventions oppose Hollywood mainstream sensibilities[7] with characteristics such as no "forward-moving narrative drive" where the structure is not as ordered or bound by a sense of needed fast pace.
[7] Characters in eccentric cinema divert from those in mainstream Hollywood, which are comprehensible[7] with journeys having a distinct beginning, complicated middle and happy ending.
[3] Mayshark perceives lack of diversity as a direct correlation within the genre's directors being primarily white Americans who may think of "other races and cultures" as only outsiders, alien in their comedic nature.
[3] Kim Wilkins states that to date the politics and style of American eccentric cinema have been informed by the overwhelmingly white male middle-upper demographic of its key filmmakers.
She writes "The focus in American eccentric films (like those in the 'smart' tendency) on 'white male urban sophisticates' situates them as a form of 'men's cinema', in Stella Bruzzi's terms.
While neither existential anxiety nor irony is, in reality, the sovereign domain of white men, their cinematic articulation in the key films of the American eccentric mode, such as P.T.
Thus, the use of irony in these films—both by characters and through aesthetic and formal strategies—is conveyed as a particularly masculine strategy; a means by which 'ugly' feelings can be repackaged as intellectual gameplay while simultaneously begging to be recognized for what it truly is.
Unlike indie films within realist modes, such as the neorealist works of Kelly Reichardt or Sean Baker, American Eccentric Cinema does not tend to portray characters at crossroads where decisions made or changing circumstances have the capacity to fundamentally affect their livelihoods, safety, or personal agency.
[3] Major events such as the September 11 attacks meant that the sense of American uncertainty that was pervading the national was reflected in themes such as self-doubt and insecurity within the characters.
[13] She demarcates five criteria for the American eccentric mode: "1: The presence of allusion, parody, and intertextuality formally (in terms of genre and meta-cinematic depiction) and playfulness/cinephilia; 2: Sincere thematic underpinnings that are presented at a distance due to the film's perceived 'quirkiness', amusing occurrences, and/or absurd aesthetic; 3: A form of ironic expression that is both reflexive and sincere; 4: Characters and cinematic worlds that are designed to encourage audience alignment despite being clearly constructed; and, above all, 5: Effective and intellectual engagement with an experience of existential anxiety".
Mayshark says that the group of filmmakers were not explicitly categorised within any genre at the beginning of the movement because their films were extremely niche and individual, with varying styles and conventions.