20 Best Indie Movies Of 2016

The novels of Philip Roth are no stranger to big screen adaptation and 2016 saw two of the acclaimed author’s works transferred to film, one being the critically panned directorial debut of actor Ewan McGregor, American Pastoral. The other was Indignation: also the directorial debut of screenwriter James Schamus but thankfully a far superior one to McGregor’s.

Set in the early 1950s, the film focuses on Marcus (Logan Lerman) – a young, working class, Jewish atheist student who leaves his New Jersey hometown to attend a prestigious Midwest college where he comes up against both anti-Semitism and the institution’s conservative Christian culture.

It’s a fascinating, character driven drama whose power is clear in a standout scene in which Marcus comes to blows with the college’s dean Hawes D. Caudwell (Tracy Letts). At almost 20 minutes and 13 pages of script long, it’s not the kind of scene moviegoers are used these days but its gripping nature is testament to both Schamus’ strength as a screenwriter and director and the actorly talents of Lerman and Letts.