Class act in all departments
INDIGNATION. Directed by James Schamus, with Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon,Tracy Letts, Linda Emond, Danny Burstein and Ben Rosenfield. SCREENWRITER, producer and industry executive James Schamus moves into directing with this fine adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel about an independent-minded youth chafing against 1950s rigidity.
There’s a stunner of a centerpiece scene in James Schamus’ exquisitely wrought film of Indignation that is quintessential Philip Roth, the author of the source novel. Played as a thrilling match of equals between Logan Lerman in a breakout performance and playwright-actor Tracy Letts in a turn that will push his estimable reputation to greater heights, this daringly extended exchange is a dialectic pitting a secular Jewish college student, resistant to suffocating authority, against a needling faculty Dean, impressed by the young man’s presentation while deploring his content. It’s characteristic of a film that is simultaneously erudite and emotional, literary and alive, that so much talk could be so enthralling.
Given the professorial Schamus’ distinguished industry pedigree — as former chief of Focus Features during its most artistically vital years, and screenwriter of films from The Ice Storm to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon — this is exactly the sort of stylish adult movie you might expect him to make in his long-awaited move into directing.
Still, there’s no such thing as a sure bet in career jumps, so the elegant execution, the incisive grasp of character and milieu, and the stealthy but sure arrival of pathos are extremely gratifying.
As writer-director, Schamus has also managed to stay true to the work of a writer whom many believe defies adaptation. Of the Roth books that have made it to the screen, the earliest, Goodbye, Columbus from 1969, was perhaps the best received, though it hasn’t aged well, and even at the time wasn’t universally loved.
There’s also a fabulous pair of scenes late in the action when Esther turns up in Ohio to visit Marcus in the hospital. Her encounter there with Olivia is both archly amusing and horrifying as she quickly assesses the girl as a bad risk. And her negotiation of a deal with Marcus, in which she agrees not to divorce his increasingly bitter and abusive father in exchange for a promise from her son, is shattering.
Emond and Burstein are toptier theatre stars who appeared together as thwarted middle-aged lovers in the recent Broadway revival of Cabaret. The same goes for the brilliant Letts, who injects a mischievous strain of megalomania into the Dean’s invasive displays of concern, making his tenacity both loathsome and funny.
The film is a class act in every department. The period production design (Inbal Weinberg) and costumes (Amy Roth) are meticulously detailed; the filigreed string score by Jay Wadley brings a classical feel without becoming old-fashioned; and the cinematography of Christopher Blauvelt, with its insinuating low and high angles, reminds us constantly that a life is being scrutinized. Schamus can very respectably add director to his string of career achievements. - Hollywood Reporter