: J.D Salinger is without a doubt one of the most important literary voices of the last century. Who among us hasn’t read “The Catcher in the Rye”? It’s essentially a right-of-passage, and generations upon generations of young people have identified with its hero, Holden Caulfield. Despite its acclaim, or more than likely, because of it, Salinger became a recluse and never published another novel (although he published several short stories up until the mid-sixties). This was a book that has inexplicably been the inspiration for at least three murders or attempted murders (John Lennon’s assassin and President’s Reagan’s would-be one declared Catcher to be their bible, one other guy, also a Holden Caulfield fan, killed actress, Rebecca Schaeffer). This could have been fascinating but the film is a watchable botch—a slapdash collection of clips, stock footage, interviews with people on the periphery of Salinger’s life (as well as acting luminaries such as Martin Sheen, John Cusack, and Philip Seymour Hoffman), and staged “re-creations” that do little but take up space in a movie that’s well over two hours long. Actually, I’m not sure if this is a movie at all or a kind of bloated electronic press kit for the book of the same name, written by director Shane Salerno (known for such literary ventures as the film and TV reboots of Shaft and Hawaii Five-0) with David Shields. What comes across most in the film is Salinger’s dedication to writing. His belief that a work should speak for itself instead of having to, in addition, give people morsels of information about one’s personal life shines through in every interview with his acquaintances and associates. The attention paid to lesser talked about details of his life, like the adaptation of his short story, “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut” into the schmaltzy Samuel Goldwyn-backed My Foolish Heart, as well as his relationship with Oona O’Neill (daughter of the famed playwright Eugene O’Neill), is also one of the most valuable facets of Salinger. Its not exactly ground-breaking and never really reveals more than we already know and the soundtrack is so heavy-handed to the point of distraction. Really, dont bother. 3/10
Posted on: Sun, 27 Apr 2014 18:06:34 +0000
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