Roth book headed to big screen

NEW YORK -- Film rights for Philip Roth’s new novel, “Indignation,” have already been optioned by Hollywood producer Scott Rudin, whose credits include the Academy Award-winning “No Country for Old Men” and the commercial smash “The Addams Family.”

No movie based on a Roth book has done so well.

In a recent interview, Roth was asked what he thought of some of those adaptations, starting with “Elegy,” a reworking of his novel “The Dying Animal,” that came out this year and attracted little attention, even though it starred Penelope Cruz.

“I think Penelope Cruz is very good. That’s what I think,” he said, declining to give further comment.

What about “The Human Stain,” starring Nicole Kidman and Anthony Hopkins and released in 2003?

“Unwatchable.”

“Portnoy’s Complaint,” a 1972 bomb starring Richard Benjamin and Karen Black?

“Unwatchable.”

He is fond of “Goodbye, Columbus.” Based on his debut novella of the same name, it came out in 1969 and featured Benjamin and a then little-known Ali MacGraw, whom he remembers as “a wonderful young actress.”

Roth, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning “American Pastoral” is also being made into a film, doesn’t seem bothered by what happens to his books on screen and doesn’t involve himself beyond selling the rights. Unlike such fellow writers as Russell Banks, Michael Chabon and John Irving, he isn’t interested in producing or script writing.

“I’m far from the movie world,” he said. “I just see if the people are presentable, if they have table manners, are neatly dressed. I don’t expect anything out of it.”