Monday, August 29, 2016

Movie: Indignation

Philip Roth sends his main character, a working class Jewish boy seeking to avoid the Korean War to a liberal arts college in Ohio in this movie based on his book of the same name.

The movie is really well done. I found the depiction of the day-to-day workings of "in loco parentis", the now largely obsolete but once very serious doctrine that colleges should monitor and guide their students in the absence of the parents, quite fascinating. The one flaw with the movie is that it does not make it clear enough that this was standard fare at the time at most residential colleges, not something unusually horrific about the college represented in the movie.

I also like the overall theme, which concerns the unintended consequences of sequences of seemingly minor choices.

Positive NYT review here.

Recommended.

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