Indignation

Set against the backdrop of the Korean War, a working-class Jewish student, Marcus (Logan Lerman), leaves Newark, New Jersey, to attend a small college in Ohio. There, he experiences a sexual awakening after meeting the elegant and wealthy Olivia (Sarah Gadon), and confronts the school’s dean (Tracy Letts) over the role of religion in academic life.

“Indignation,” the directing debut of the long time independent film producer and executive James Schamus, is a movie so insistently out of step with contemporary American cinema as to be considered practically defiant. Adapted from a novel by Philip Roth, “Indignation” is, like much of Roth’s late work, concerned with, or perhaps the better phrase is “consumed by” mortality and its inevitability. The novel’s measured prose carries a subtext of absolute rage at the arbitrary unfairness of fate. “Drawing superb performances from each and every one of his actors, Schamus meticulously makes every shot, and every gesture contained within that shot, count…..Schamus’ commitment to a style, and to the material, yields potent results.…It brings home all the indignation of Roth’s work, and adds some fresh fuel to that fire.” (Glenn Kenny www.rogerebert.com)