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Indignation

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A scene in Indignation. (NuMetro)
A scene in Indignation. (NuMetro)

What it's about:

It’s 1951, and Marcus Messner, a brilliant working-class Jewish boy from Newark, New Jersey, travels on scholarship to a small, conservative college in Ohio, thus exempting him from being drafted into the Korean War. But, once in Ohio, Marcus’s growing infatuation with his beautiful classmate, and his clashes with the college’s imposing dean, put his and his family’s best laid plans to the ultimate test.

What we thought:

Everything about Indignation is done right. 

The film, based on Philip Roth's novel, is magnificently put together and carefully crafted even to the finest detail of Olivia’s pale yellow cardigan. 

Director James Schamus finds beauty in even the most mundane of scenes – like a vase of roses in a hospital room. 

Logan Lerman (Marcus Messner) and Sarah Gadon (Olivia Hutton) give stellar performances, the cinematography is exceptional and the discourse complexly intelligent. 

There is only one problem. Indignation is too beautiful. So beautiful in fact that it’s boring. 

The perfection of it all becomes monotonous and soon you find your mind wondering to other things. At the end you wonder what the purpose of it all was.

The film relies heavily on Roth’s written word. It’s the dialogue that’s captivating in this tale, not the storyline. But for how long can only the conversations between the characters carry you through the story? 

After a while it all becomes rather dull and the climax comes far too late. 

There’s not a lot of intrigue or plot developments to keep you hooked and I’m sure that for some moviegoers that’s satisfactory. But I found it all a little on the vanilla side of things. 

Indignation is a perfectly fine film. That’s all. 


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