Marcus Messner is fighting in the Korean War. After an encounter with Chinese troops, he reflects on the choices he made in his life and how they led him to where he is now.
In the summer of 1951, before his first year of college, Marcus’s synagogue in Newark, New Jersey mourns the death in Korea of one of his classmates. Marcus has been awarded a scholarship to Winesburg College, a private Christian school in Ohio, which allows him to defer the draft. His father, who runs a kosher butcher shop, is unnerved by the deaths in the war of boys like his son and becomes overwhelmed with paranoia.
At Winesburg, Marcus is a studious, introverted pupil who feels disconnected from the rest of the student body, including fellow Jewish students. He meets Olivia Hutton, a beautiful student majoring in French literature. The daughter of a Cleveland surgeon, Olivia is freethinking, sophisticated, and sexually frank, but also fragile and disturbed; she feels as alienated and out-of-place as Marcus.
On their first date, Olivia ends the evening by performing fellatio on him. The inexperienced Marcus is so shocked that he rejects her for a time. As he and Olivia continue to have sexual relations without intercourse, he learns that she tried to commit suicide and was treated at the Menninger clinic. Olivia’s parents sent her to Winesburg hoping that the “squareness” of the school would help her become stable.
Marcus decides that he can no longer tolerate his noisy, intrusive roommates and requests to switch to a single room. The university administration schedules a meeting with Dean of Men Caudwell. Though the discussion is ostensibly about the change in his living situation, it becomes an interrogation about Marcus’s atheist beliefs and his dislike of Winesburg’s conservative culture. The already ill Marcus becomes so agitated that he vomits and passes out. During recovery from what he learns was appendicitis, Marcus’s mother visits him and says that she wants a divorce from his father, who is growing increasingly deranged and can no longer run the shop.
She meets Olivia, who has come to bring red and white roses to Marcus, and sees the wrist scar from her suicide attempt; they speak away from Marcus when leaving. The next day, Marcus’s mother apologizes to him for oversharing her marital problems and promises not to divorce, but only if he stops dating Olivia. She warns him of the dangers of getting too involved with people who have mental illness and that a relationship with her would ruin his potential.
Indignation is an American drama film, directed and written by James Schamus, making his feature directorial debut, and based on the Philip Roth novel Indignation (2008). The film is set mostly in Ohio, in the early 1950s, and stars Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Pico Alexander, Danny Burstein, Linda Emond, and Ben Rosenfield. The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2016. The film is scheduled to be released on July 29, 2016, by Roadside Attractions.
Indignation is a 2016 American drama film written, produced, and directed by James Schamus, making his feature directorial debut, and based on Philip Roth’s 2008 novel of the same name. The film is set mostly in Ohio, in the early 1950s, and stars Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts, Linda Emond, Danny Burstein, Ben Rosenfield, Pico Alexander, Philip Ettinger, and Noah Robbins.
The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2016, and was theatrically released on July 29, 2016, by Roadside Attractions and Summit Entertainment. Lerman’s performance received positive reviews among critics and earned him a nomination on Seattle Film Critics Awards for Best Actor.
Indignation
Directed by: James Schamus
Starring: Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Pico Alexander, Danny Burstein, Linda Emond, Tracy Letts, Ben Rosenfield, Margo Kazaryan, Melanie Blake Roth, Joanne Baron, Danny Burstein
Screenplay by: James Schamus
Production Design by: Inbal Weinberg
Cinematography by: Christopher Blauvelt
Film Editing by: Andrew Marcus
Costume Design by: Amy Roth
Set Decoration by: Philippa Culpepper
Music by: Jay Wadley
MPAA Rating: R for sexual content and some language.
Studio: Roadside Attractions
Release Date: July 29, 2016
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