As the head of Focus Features during its finest years, James
Schamus had the chance to work with the likes of Ang Lee, Sophia Coppola, and
more. And clearly, he's learned a thing or two from them about handling intense
material with gentleness and care. For his directorial debut Schamus couldn't
have chosen a more difficult author to adapt, Philip Roth, whose many works
have frustrated filmmakers unable to properly adapt the material to the screen.
Indignation is the best Roth
adaptation yet, combining intense performances with a simplified yet resonant
interpretation of the author's consummation with fate.
In this case, the fate is that of Marcus
Messner (Logan Lerman), a bright, serious Jewish kid and the son of a New
Jersey butcher. It's the second year of the Korean War and while other kids his
age are being shipped off to fight, Marcus gets around that by escaping to a
small, idyllic, conservative Winesburg College in Ohio. It's a match not
exactly made in Heaven. Marcus is his own guy, too intelligent and progressive
for the stifling blue collar neighborhood (and doting parents) from which he
grew up. The hope is that getting away to college will give him the freedom
he's long felt unable to find.
But the university system is a system
nonetheless, and Marcus has difficulty working within it. He doesn't fit in
with his roommates, both Jewish; he doesn't want to join the Jewish fraternity
that his parents so hoped he would. And he certainly clashes with the school's
dean of students (acclaimed playwright Tracy Letts), who pins Marcus down in a
clash of words for the ages. This will be the scene many will be left talking
about when "best scenes of the year" discussions come up. A 15-minute
intellectual chess match in which Marcus defends his right to be himself
against a man who is, frankly, a blowhard but a blowhard from an era that
doesn't understand the way things are presently. The title
"indignation" is there for a reason; it describes Marcus' attitude as
he defiantly battles maintain his intellectual independence.
If there's a glimmer of hope and light in
Marcus' life it's the intriguing, gorgeous Olivia (Sarah Gadon), a woman who
sees immediately that he has "no business being here" in a stagnant
place like Winesburg. But it's also in her that Marcus, who has always prided
himself on knowing exactly who he is, begins to learn things about himself that
he may not have wanted to know. Their first date ends with unexpected sexual
gratification, which throws his life into a tailspin. He doesn't know quite how
to handle it. Things like that aren't supposed to happen in sweetly 1951 Ohio;
and without any kind of previous experience (or a philosopher’s knowledge to
draw from), he falls back on stereotypes with the potential to cause real pain.
It's a fascinating look at a brilliant
young man coming into his own in a time that doesn't seem prepared for him, and
Schamus handles the material with the respect it deserves. Perhaps it's getting
out of the studio system that gave him this kind of freedom, but Schamus leaves
plenty of room to let his characters grow. His strict commitment to the novel's
gradual pacing works wonders, and the performance shine as a result. You can
see Lerman coming into his own, growing into the role of Marcus as the film
moves along. And of course, that extended sequence between Lerman and Letts
simply wouldn't happen under most studios, or it would have been chopped up and
lost any effectiveness. It's such an incredibly fierce, tour-de-force effort
from both Lerman and Letts that to miss it would be criminal. Gadon, as well,
gives a heartbreakingly poignant performance, while character actors Linda
Emond (who is also terrific in The
Land, which
is out right now) and Danny Burstein give color to a film that is
philosophically, intellectually, and visually stimulating. That Indignation is Schamus' first shot out of the
gate is, hopefully, a sign that even better things are to come. But if not,
then Schamus can rest easy that his debut was a provocative, timeless success.
Rating: 4 out of 5
