My Salinger Year

This film isn't a gale of entertainment. Much like the book. It's a Sunday read in the sun while the breeze blows. Or a Saturday late movie when you can't sleep because the damn moon is full and is keeping you up. Wonderfully acted. Styled realistically. Engaged dialogues. Sigourney carries herself and the film along every time she appears and Margaret is a delight to watch- she is going places. Read the book and watch the film. Or watch the film and read the book. It matters not what comes first. The movie is for all book lovers, and whether time has read Catcher or not. A solid 7.

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.

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.

Most people reviewing this film - understandably - look to it to be an examination of the world of New York literary agents, J.D. Salinger's work, aspiring writers, or some combination of all the above. Who can say - but it seems clear from seeing it just now (on its U.S. release) that it's a movie not principally concerned about those other things, but rather about its own central character, Joana Rakoff (as played by Margaret Qualley). It is, after all, *Joanna's* Salinger Year - not those other folks'; it's concerned with her *experience* of those things - not the things themselves. I find the movie to be highly underrated; indeed, it's got a few really standout moments (mostly things that play out in the confines of Joanna's mind) - as well as some good, solid performances. If you take it purely as a story of personal growth and development, *set against* the backdrop of the NY literary world, I think you'll enjoy it, as I did. It's "subtle," to be sure - but who needs sledgehammers? (Save that for "My Sledgehammer Year.")

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.