I had one of those days at the cinema where I didn’t want to leave the adventures I was watching. I revisited Anthropoid, which was still excellent, even the second watch. But there was another film I have had my eye on for a while, Indignation, which I thought sounded very interesting. I am definitely a fan of Logan Lerman, a fine up and coming actor who definitely deserves more attention. He was my main reason for wanting to see this movie.
Indignation is directed by James Schamus, whom I’m not familiar with as a director, but after a quick IMDb search, he wrote the screenplay to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Ang Lee’s version of Hulk. I thought that Schamus did a very good job directing this film, and I’m intrigued to see what he will do next. He was able to capture the essence of the film very well and his way of filmmaking was quite impressive.
Indignation is a film that takes place in 1951, it follows a working-class Jewish boy (Logan Lerman) from New Jersey. He attends a small Ohio, extremely religious, college. It is here where he struggles with sexual repression and cultural disaffection, amid the ongoing Korean War.
The story to this film was very intriguing, it was very well written and well acted. I guess its based off a book after an IMDb search. I think it would be interesting to read the book to compare, but even so I thought the movie was a beautifully shot and written film.
The actors is where the film really shines however. Logan Lerman – Perks of Being A Wallflower(2012), Fury(2014), 3:10 To Yuma(2007), and Gamer(2009) plays the main character of Marcus. Lerman has always taken very interesting roles in films, especially with Perks of Being A Wallflower, which I thought was a beautiful life changing film. Back to the task at hand though, Lerman in this movie was excellent, he’s a brilliant young actor and I’m always interested to see what he does next. Anytime his name is attached to a film, I’m automatically intrigued. He played the role of Marcus very well, there were even parts in the film, especially when he was talking to the dean where I was genuinely uneasy and moved by his acting. The love interest in the film is played by Sarah Gadon -Dracula Untold(2014), Enemy(2013), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and A Dangerous Method (2011). For being in so many films I have seen I didn’t actually recognize her, and I regret that, because she did a very good job in this film. She was mysterious, even when she wasn’t trying to be. She just did an overall great job, and her and Lerman had brilliant chemistry together.
My only negatives towards the film was it was a little slow, of course it was building to something, but there were parts that i didn’t feel were entirely necessary but I could definitely understand why they were there.
In the end though, I thought Indignation was a really good movie, full of a pretty good, but slower paced story but full of really great acting.
I give Indignation a 4/5. If you’re in the mood for an interesting romance/drama/period-piece, definitely check it out!
-Andrew