Review of Indignation (2016) by Richard D — 23 Sep 2016

This is one of the most thoughtful, best acted and best directed movies that I have seen this year. The movie is much better than Philip Roth's book. The fictional Winesburg, Ohio University is cast as a Christian-supported and proselityzing institution.

Its Dean of Men, played by Tracy Letts, is a brilliant interrogator, who in the guise of supporting a very bright student, Marcus Messner, is actually attempting quite forcefully to control the young man's life.

The scenes between the two of them are excruciating. Sarah Gadon, who plays Olivia, is remarkable. First, she is remarkably beautiful, which just cannot be ignored when her face is thirty feet high. Her ability to quickly shift among emotions is so refined, that it is hard to believe that she is only 29.

She has been acting since 1998, when she was eleven. Everything about the ambience at Winesburg, the clothes, the cars, the dorm living, conflicts among roommates, seniors hiring underclassmen to go to church services for them: absolutely nothing feels false.

Marcus' mother is viciously controlling of her son's life, to the point at which...I won't spoil it for you. What happens between Marcus and Olivia on their first date is, uh, highly unusual, and yet it stirs the entire plot to the point of emotional boilover.

If you can still find this movie in the theaters, please go see it. You will be thrilled by it. It will stay with you, as they say, for an extremely long and rewarding time.