Indignation

You could call Logan Lerman Young Reliable if you were so inclined. He is that rare former child actor who has grown up to have a pretty impressive career—a result of hard work, discipline, and right choices. Oh sure, he participates sometimes in your standard Hollywood tripe (the Percy Jackson series) and has fallen flat on his face a couple of times (The Three Musketeers, Noah), but for the most part, you can see Lerman’s name on a project and know that it will likely be something worth seeing. His newest star vehicle, Indignation, is right up there with Stuck in Love and The Perks of Being a Wallflower on my list of favorite movies from the last five years. And many observers would say his portrayal of Marcus Messner in this adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel is his best performance to date. They would probably be right.

Marcus is a slightly different character from the type Lerman usually plays. Oh, he’s smart, sensitive, and vulnerable like the others. But he’s also stubborn, argumentative, and a little bit vain. He’s a curly-haired Jewish boy with a Joisey accent and a sort of brash confidence that doesn’t exist in somebody like Charlie from Wallflower. He’s also an atheist, which makes him even more of a rebel in the 1950’s conservative college environment where this film is set.

The character’s atheism is a major part of this film’s subject matter. It’s an uncomfortable topic for me as a viewer. I am not an atheist, and I don’t always relate very well with atheists. My friendships with atheists are warm and sincere but can also get awkward, much the way that it’s awkward when a gay man brings his boyfriend home to his devout religious family for Christmas, or when a Trump supporter and Clintonite go on a blind date. There are times in this movie when I really do not like this character because of things that he says about his beliefs. They make me mad. But I have a feeling I’m playing right into the filmmakers’ hands.

(The title of this film is tricky in a way. You might think it refers to conservative attitudes that the main character has to face. He gets accused of stuff; he feels like an outcast. Largely, he thinks of himself as a victim. In reality, I think he's the one who feels the greatest sense of indignation towards what he perceives to be persecution...which, in one case, is not incorrect. But then the ball bounces back to me when I see how I respond emotionally to the character's rather passionate rejection of the God that means so much to me. This is a challenging film that does not pander.) 

The screenwriter and director, James Schamus, has a long and impressive resume that is perhaps most notable for being Ang Lee’s right hand man/producer. With writing credits like The Ice Storm and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, it’s not a surprise that he’s written such a powerful adaptation of Roth’s novel, which—admittedly—I have not read. Schamus had directed two shorts before this, but this was his feature directing debut, and if it gets him up on the Oscars stage, I’ll be happy.

Not to be Logan-centric because I am a long-time fan, there are many great performances in this film. One of the most interesting is playwright Tracy Letts (author of the very dark Bug and Killer Joe) as the Dean of the school where Marcus attends. The two characters duke it out in a war of words in a very atypically long scene that lasts over 15 minutes. (This is almost unheard of in cinema.) It’s in this scene where I get mad at Marcus, but Letts’ character is totally cool, even though his philosophy is more like my own. He seems to care about the welfare of his much agitated student, who is too self-absorbed to realize it.

Then there’s the girl that Marcus falls for, a troubled ex-psychiatric patient who is also a student at the school. She is played with disarming intensity by Sarah Gadon.

This is a movie about identity, and how we define ourselves as we mature, and how those parameters that we set for ourselves affect our choices and life outcomes. To say more would be getting into spoiler territory, and I want too much for people to see this to give spoilers. Suffice to say that you really end up caring very much for the people on the screen, in spite of their flaws (which, in Marcus’ case, is not his beliefs, but his stubbornness, which leads him to reckless choices). You want them to thrive and to be happy. And it’s really not too much of a spoiler to say, as you’re watching this film, you know better than to expect that.