My Salinger Year

It's not an eventful story, but somehow it really engages you with realistic characters and an engaging story. I find it heartwarming.

This film starts off a bit slow and hard to follow until you start to feel you are back in that time of your life when you had your first notable job. The story unfolds and you start to care about the depth of the cast. The music accompanies the scenes nicely. The images of New York are always appreciated by me. This is a gentle movie for those who appreciate writers, books and agents.

While there is nothing particularly revelatory about My Salinger Year, it is a pleasant and neatly crafted film. There are obvious comparisons to be made with The Devil Wears Prada but this work seems far more honest and much less showy. There is humour but not to the camp heights of 'Prada'. Instead there are some great observations on the arrival of the internet and email into the long established world of New York literati, the story being set in 1995. The always striking Sigourney Weaver has fabulous command of comedy and makes these moments truly memorable. But an actor such as Weaver has so much more to give and does so in the small opportunities she his given to extend her character beyond two dimensions. Qualley is an adeqate lead, at times over then under playing her role. Fantasy moments are also woven in, which do feel awkward at first but then somehow seem to fit with the protagonist's wistfulness. A dance sequence is particularly lovely. If you are looking for a pleasant, not very challenging but intelligent adult film then My Salinger Year will satisfy a night out, or more likely, a night in.

Joanna was studying to hone her literary skills, her ambition was to be a writer. But the job she was interviewing for, with a literary agency, didn't really want young writers, they wanted someone to assist the female boss and if successful might become a literary agent some day. So she had to constantly underplay her writing side.

One of her tasks was to open and read letters to J. D. Salinger, the gem of the agency's clients. Eventually this resulted in her talking to Salinger, who they just called 'Jerry', by phone and receiving some advice and inspiration from him.

Her job with the agency lasted most of the year 1996, eventually she was to write her memoir "My Salinger Year" and this movie is made from that. It isn't a dry account at all, we enjoyed that it contained a nice amount of whimsy. Some of the Salinger letter writers were visualized as real characters. One of them Joanna even talks to at times. At one point 5 or 6 of them are all on the train with her.

A really well made and entertaining movie, Margaret Qualley is excellent in the Joanna role. Some of it was fictionalized, but the core of the story is factual. My wife and I watched it at home on DVD from our public library.

Oct 2022 edit: Just watched it again after almost 10 months, I enjoyed it even more this time, knowing how the whole story would play out.

A heartwarming story about someone trying to understand their inner self. This feels like real life with the daily struggles, the ups and downs, the sadness, the constant search for happiness and those tiny little moments when you realize who you are and what you want. Those moments when everything makes sense and you feel in control. I live for those moments.