Indignation **** (2016, Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Linda Emond, Tracy Letts) – Movie Review

Logan Lerman is brilliant as young, clever and idealistic Marcus Messner, a Jewish butcher’s son from New Jersey, who leaves the family home and joins a small Ohio college in 1951, and meets trouble and strife. Oh and a troubled girl, anti-Semitism and sexual repression.

His sparring-match scenes with Tracy Letts as the conservative, religious college Dean Caudwell are electrifying. Rarely has talk in the movies been so spellbinding.

James Schamus makes a beautiful job of directing, and also of writing the screenplay from the novel by Philip Roth. With its plush, period-perfect production, I couldn’t have enjoyed or appreciated it more. Linda Emond is first rate as Marcus’s steely mother, and Sarah Gadon is lovely in every way as the woman Marcus falls for at college.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

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