My Salinger Year

What a charming, playful, subtle, witty and original movie this is!

The story: a young woman leaves everything behind to become a writer in the big city New York. Will she succeed or will she become another failed writer?

The good: this movie is a delight, because of it's playful, charming, subtle and witty nature. You dont have to be into books at all to love this movie.

What's most precious for me about this movie is the photography, especially the many GORGEOUS still screen shots of MARGARET QUALLEY. Those eyes of her, those wide open puppy eyes, ooze innocence and emotions so pure and gentle! I am instantly smitten with her acting performance, so delicate, so true to life, so expressive.

Any bad? This is a slowburning, subtle story, dont expect fireworks, it's probably best suited for a patient arthouse movie audience who are into subtle portraits of characters.

Amazing to see it has only gotten 62 reviews, but it must be the corona troubles with distributing movies that this movie has slipped from the radar, because it is definitely worth watching!

This is quiet and lovely; I don't understand the low score.

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.

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

My Salinger Year is an appealing movie, that honestly tries to be artsy. There has clearly been put much attention to the costumes and the set pieces to sketch either a naturalistic or an expressionistic image at the right times. They play with the fourth wall in a way that reminds of Woody Allan, like it or not, and the realism of most of the scenes are at times contrasted with images that are open for interpretation, also like it or not.

The characters and their dialogues are borderline caricatures (cribbed from The Devil Wears Prada, by the way), but are just barely saved from being a parody by the intimate performances. The tempo, though, is that of a rusty typewriter. Uncomfortable pauses in between scenes are abundant and the actors take their time for every sentence. Hereby the film wins believability, but loses my attention.

The movie rambles on like an omnibus train that at times halts in a little station where no one boards let alone leaves the train, but along the way does show a few mesmerising landscapes. Still, the finale is of much less meaning than the ecstatic waltz music make it appear; a little bit like arriving in Boulder while the broadcasting voice announces New York.

Apart from the critique, it should be said that this charming evening filler has encouraged me to write this text ("You're a writer, yes? - Yes - So write!"); at bloody ten past eleven in the evening with an already chilled tea next to me. A manuscript that I, miraculously, finished and put online where it will probably end up in the shredder of oblivion.

It's not an appalling movie. Mostly it's a slow movie, with dry humour, interesting images and the usual pretentious use of well known classical music to give the whole at least some "préséance".