INDIGNATION


Flip back to 1951 and the novel by Philip Roth, adapted for the screen and directed by James Schamus. A smart Jewish boy from Newark, N.J., hoping to evade the draft for the Korean War, goes to a fictional college in Ohio, where we watch his experiences, academic and romantic, and follow what happens to him.

The film comes vividly alive, thanks to its excellent performances and the skill with which Schamus does justice to his subject. Roth’s well-known ability to nail characters and their environment is reflected.

The best sequences occur between student Marcus (Logan Lerman) and Dean Caudwell (Tracy Letts), who calls Marcus in for a talk. Marcus, unable to stand his two Jewish roommates, managed to move into a private but less attractive room, and this has rattled the dean. There is an undercurrent of anti-Semitism—for starters Jewish students are matched to live together.

Marcus doesn’t want to join a fraternity and doesn’t like going to chapel as required. He shuns religion and quotes philosopher Bertrand Russell as backup. Dean Caudwell, given a superb portrayal by Letts, needles Marcus, well-played throughout the film by Lerman, who finally explodes in anger at the prosecutorial dean and clearly cannot fit into the image of the student the dean wants to see. He is clearly an outsider Jew in the eyes of his superior, who is simultaneously intrigued by Marcus but also wants to change him or get rid of him.

Meanwhile, Marcus has met a bold but tragic non-Jewish, extremely attractive female student, Olivia, played impressively by Sarah Gadon. She spontaneously pleasures him on a date in a car that he has borrowed for the occasion. It would be a dream-come-true experience for most male students, but it upsets Marcus to think that it is something she would have done with others. The film spends time dealing with the curve of their relationship and the emotional problems of Olivia, evidenced by scars on her wrists.

We also meet Marcus’s parents, his father (Danny Burstein), an intense, always nervous butcher, and his mother (Linda Emond), who demands that he not see Linda when she notices the wrist scars and knows there will be trouble.

The film captures the atmosphere and look of the early 1950s, and is consistently engrossing. Unfortunately, its structure includes wrap-around flashbacks that are confusing with respect to Marcus’s life and the war. The ending is abrupt and unsatisfying in the way we are informed of the outcome. Otherwise, “Indignation” is a compelling, perceptive film that may make one want to read Roth’s novel. A Roadside Attractions and Summit Entertainment release. Reviewed July 29, 2016.




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