Sarah Gadon and Logan Lerman in Indignation (Alison Cohen Rosa/Summit Entertainment/Roadside Attractions)

 What space is there in the world for a free-spirited critical thinker? Indignation, adapted by director James Schamus from Philip Roth’s novel, explores this question through the character of Marcus Messner (Logan Lerman), a brilliant atheist trapped in a hopelessly square college in 1951 Ohio. The free-thinking Marcus faces the inevitable squeeze of 1950s Middle American authoritarian institutions via a tactful, oblique building of tension through minor incidents. Lerman’s performance is easily one of the year’s best; the sets and costumes are keenly conceived; the film’s intelligence, while front and center, is worn lightly and invitingly; and its central romance is highly unique. A subtle, effective tragedy, Indignation is one of the highlights of the year.

The film opens in 1951 Newark, New Jersey, and in only a few scenes, a strong sense of that city’s tightly knit Jewish community is established. Marcus is a star, the envy of the other Jewish mothers in the city, and his modest parents are proud that he has won a scholarship to attend a small Christian school, Winesburg College. It is a rather radical departure for Marcus. A friend’s mother remarks, “Ohio? How will you keep kosher in Ohio?”

At Winesburg, Marcus cuts a solitary, scholarly figure, working in the library, loping around the pastoral campus with a book perpetually tucked under his arm. In its depiction of an intense, young Jewish student assiduously studying, there are some shades of Chaim Potok’s The Chosen, but Marcus isn’t studying the Torah. He’s reading Bertrand Russell’s treatises in defense of atheism. He’s also not always cooped up in his room or in the library reading. Fairly early in his college career, he takes his beautiful classmate Olivia Hutton (Sarah Gadon) out on a date, with far more intimate results than he is remotely prepared for.

Olivia is a loner like Marcus, and they form a tight but volatile bond. Marcus is isolated by choice, because he’d rather spend his time reading and thinking than fraternizing with his comparably immature classmates. Olivia is isolated for darker reasons, like a history of substance abuse and hospitalization. Despite his atheism and critical view of society at large, Marcus is fairly well-adjusted and sanguine. However, attractions based on a shared sense of isolation may be powerful but are seldom stable.

After Marcus requests the minor change of getting his own room, he is called into the office of Dean Caudwell (Tracy Letts), the conservative authority figure with keen antennae for anything slightly out of the ordinary. While an essentially an agent of repression and control, Caudwell is keen to make a show of reasonability, circumspection, and judiciousness. However, in calling Marcus into his office for a gentle feeling-out that is really an interrogation in disguise, he does so without fully realizing who he is dealing with.

Marcus unloads his full rhetorical and verbal abilities on the dean, tearing the administrator’s arguments to shreds while being mindful not to verge into open contempt. Marcus has never before had occasion to defend himself and his ideals in this manner, and Lerman convincingly portrays a brilliant young man forced to grow into himself in real time. Caudwell alternates between being impressed at the backbone of this young iconoclast and chagrined that Marcus won’t simply bow his head, mumble, and shuffle out of the office like a typical college student. This long, fascinating scene is the standout and, indeed, one of the most compelling so far in 2016.

More powerful and impactful than its polish, deliberate pacing, and academic focus may suggest, Indignation is a haunting tragedy whose effects are not quickly shaken off.