Indignation
4 of 5 stars
Now playing.
R; 1 hr., 50 min. Directed by James Schamus.
Based off Philip Roth’s slim 2008 novel of the same name, Indignation is a quietly powerful, restrained showcase of no-nonsense filmmaking. First-time director James Schamus and a bevy of below-the-line talent tell a straightforward story in a blessedly straightforward way.
Schamus is the CEO of Focus Pictures, so to call him a neophyte is a little disingenuous: He’s overseen multiple films from directors like Ang Lee and Todd Haynes. Still, this is his first time behind the camera, and he acquits himself impressively. On a craft level, Indignation does not feel like an independent movie circa 2016; it’s all unhurried medium shots of conversations playing out, where Schamus cuts in for emphasis, or disciplined, rigid shot/reverse shot stuff. It’s meat-and-potatoes melodrama, to be sure, but it’s also weirdly fresh in comparison to the cinema of today.
“OK, Godard, but what the hell is it about,” you’re asking. I’m glad you did ask that. Logan Lerman (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) gives a frankly stunning performance as Marcus Messner, a Jewish kid from Newark who leaves for college in Ohio in 1951. There he meets two key people: Olivia, played by late-era Cronenberg muse Sarah Gadon, and Dean Caudwell, played with subtle, ingratiating menace by playwright Tracey Letts.
Messner is a strange guy. He sticks fiercely to his principles, but his principles are slightly skewed: he's a hardline athiest with a thing about his Jewishness, refusing to join the Jewish fraternity and challenging the Dean when he calls his father a “kosher butcher.” He quotes Bertrand Russell as justification for skipping chapel and calls people out for ad hominem attacks like he's a conservative pundit yelling on Twitter. He’s also sexually repressed. Olivia blows Marcus in his friend’s car on their first date (in a graveyard!) and it turns the poor guy upside down. He puzzles over this act like it’s the Zapruder film. It’s tidy that these two powerful masters of his personality find outlets in two people: the Dean and Olivia, respectively.
Indignation is about as slow a burn as you can get without turning the heat completely off. The film is bookended by two framing devices: an old woman in a nursing home in the present day and a dim, firelit Korean War flashback. These don’t get resolved until the climax, by which point the film’s burnished pastel cinematography (digital, but with the gauzy texture of film) and Philip Glass-lite score begin to feel suffocating. The camera drags us toward an unavoidable conclusion which Schamus depicts with characteristic nonchalance. It simply shows us what we’ve already seen; the difference being that now we understand what we’re seeing.
At two points during the film, Marcus is dwarfed by another person: they fill the frame behind him, either leaning or standing over his shoulder, dominating him physically. He’s all bluster, all the time, never able to express the truth of what he’s feeling despite his intelligence, everything he’s read, everything he knows.
Indignation is ultimately a story about the impossibility of interpersonal relationships — everyone in the film either wants something from Marcus or he something from them, and neither party is able to satisfy the other. You’re either left bleeding out in a Korean jungle or rendered catatonic from a crippling nervous breakdown.
Have fun at the movies, y’all!
This article appears in Aug 18-25, 2016.