While adjusting to life at a Midwestern college during the Korean War, a driven New York Jewish boy asks out a beautiful, worldly Gentile. Since this is based on a Philip Roth novel, things soon get ... unlovely. It takes a reel or two for the largely excellent cast to really pick up the pungent rhythms of the dialog, but once they do, hoo boy, watch out. Fascinating and merciless, with a central rhetorical showdown in the Dean’s Office that is just the damndest thing.