Indignation
Summit Entertainment | Release Date: July 29, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
78
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
27
Mixed:
8
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesBill ZweckerAug 4, 2016
This is one helluva compelling film that presents us with several of the very best performances of the year. Lerman and Letts, in particular, present us with fully-developed characterizations that will remain with audiences long after they leave the theater. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 4, 2016
Like the best wines and the best films, there’s a complexity to the finish, so that it reverberates with meanings beyond the obvious. Indignation has the disconcerting quality of truth and is an altogether adult piece of work. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyJul 29, 2016
Schamus’ commitment to a style, and to the material, yields potent results. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJul 28, 2016
Indignation tells a very particular story, one that’s bittersweet, heartbreaking and bleakly comic all at once, and it gets it right. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJul 28, 2016
Schamus is the former head of Focus Features, and seeing how he directs (this is his debut, though he has been Ang Lee’s collaborator for decades), I suspect he chose the company’s name. His vision is 20/20 plus. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyJoe McGovernJul 28, 2016
The dean was more of a cartoon in Roth’s book, but Letts lends him a slippery wit that, much like the movie, is surprisingly potent. Read full review
90
The New York TimesStephen HoldenJul 28, 2016
Indignation might be dismissed as a small, exquisite period piece, but it is so precisely rendered that it gets deeply under your skin. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 28, 2016
Indignation is very much the sort of venture Mr. Schamus has often championed as a producer — ambitious and provocative, a must-see for anyone who cares about independent film. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJan 27, 2016
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. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 5, 2016
Lerman's excellent as Marcus, capturing his principles as well as his bullheadedness. Sarah Gadon's Olivia is no less fine. Read full review
88
New York PostKyle SmithJul 28, 2016
Indignation is devastating, haunting and important. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 28, 2016
Indignation is one of the few adaptations of Roth's work to make it to the screen with its claws intact — Schamus reveals his gifts as a filmmaker who respect the words and the space between them in equal measure. Read full review
88
ObserverOliver JonesJul 27, 2016
In the process, Schamus creates not only a meaningful and moving snapshot of an America on the cusp of redefining itself, but also a cinematic hybrid few of us thought possible: the literary college sex comedy. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineCarson LundJul 25, 2016
James Schamus's screenplay is rich with culturally specific details that deepen these forking moral predicaments. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallAug 10, 2016
James Schamus makes an impressive directing debut with Indignation, an oasis of summer movie intelligence. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnJul 29, 2016
Indignation doesn’t break any fresh ground, and at times plays more like a series of engaging moments than a cohesive whole, but its craftsmanship is impeccable. Read full review
83
The Film StageJordan RaupJan 27, 2016
Indignation is a thoughtful examination of romantic courtship and educational routines that’s best when its writer-director prioritizes characters over plot. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzAug 4, 2016
Indignation sneaks up on you, and that may be its greatest difference from the blockbuster mentality. Its explosions are quieter, but just as destructive. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonJan 27, 2016
The directorial debut of long-time screenwriter and producer James Schamus exudes a tasteful reserve, but actor Logan Lerman cuts through the seeming gentility in a performance that seethes with his character’s burgeoning arrogance and cynicism. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldAug 11, 2016
With impeccable performances — particularly an electric, extended scene between Marcus and the college dean (Tracy Letts), and Gadon, whose wistful character has a face full of secrets — Indignation is an elegant debut for longtime producer Schamus; a visit to the past, with both sunshine and darkness. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJul 29, 2016
For a movie featuring so much emotional discord, Indignation has an overly cautious tone: It could have been made in 1951. I realize that this effect is largely intentional, but that doesn’t altogether excuse it. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubEsther ZuckermanJul 28, 2016
This is a bleak film, one whose undercurrent of morbidity stems any romanticization of the past. That ominousness can at times be suffocating, as the action barrels toward a conclusion it insists on foreshadowing. Light summer fare this is not. Read full review
75
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerJan 29, 2016
Indignation resonates at times with the tension of things said and unsaid, regretted and forgotten. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeJan 27, 2016
This may be Schamus’ directorial debut, but he’s no amateur, and his experience — both in cinema and in life — comes through onscreen. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenAug 10, 2016
Indignation, however, is not really about sex, but rather, the cataclysms that can result from the most banal of choices. Read full review
67
TheWrapSam AdamsAug 5, 2016
Indignation is a movie of great thoughtfulness and and rigor, but at times it feels like you’re buckled into Marcus’ straitjacket along with him, and you yearn to loosen the straps. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayAug 4, 2016
The beauty of Indignation can be found in how it builds, growing from a garden-variety coming-of-age story into a poetic, even prayerful, meditation on the pitiless vagaries of character and regret. Thoughtful and reserved, perhaps even to a fault, Indignation winds up packing a wallop far greater than its modest parts might suggest. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyNov 23, 2016
It’s considerably too polite to do Philip Roth justice. Only in that single tête-à-tête does it truly crackle with the cold, white heat required. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJul 25, 2016
Schamus is a great producer of independent cinema, having overseen — and sometimes co-written — the work of Ang Lee, but this is the first movie he has directed, and the rhythm of the storytelling feels careful and courteous to a fault. Read full review
60
The GuardianNigel M SmithJan 27, 2016
Unfortunately, on the whole, Schamus’ debut feels too self-serious to fully engage. Read full review
58
The PlaylistJessica KiangJul 28, 2016
Though he gets fine performances from many quarters...the film is scuppered by an approach that sees it build on the bones of the novel without ever quite animating its heart. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 16, 2016
Those scenes with Letts are worth the price of admission, even if the movie overall drags, dry and not nearly as droll as Roth must have intended. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorAug 4, 2016
And therein lies the difficulty of adapting Indignation for the screen; remove Roth’s prose from the equation and you don’t have much left. Writer and director James Schamus turns Indignation into a minor period piece, a precise but seemingly pointless evocation of the stultifying conventionalism of an American university campus in the 1950s. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTom RussoAug 4, 2016
Despite the material’s fit, the story’s relentlessly downbeat tone is challenging. Strong performances by Logan Lerman (“Fury”) and Sarah Gadon (Hulu’s “11.22.63”) can’t keep the film from feeling like exhaustingly slow going. Read full review
50
Village VoiceApril WolfeJul 28, 2016
An excellent, hilarious 15-minute verbal sparring match between Marcus and the school’s dean (Tracy Letts) is both an overindulgence — so many of the characters need fleshing out — but also a welcome burst of laughter in a self-serious picture. Read full review
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