SALINGER (Shane Salerno). 129 minutes. Opens Friday (September 20). For venues and times, see listings. Rating: NN
Shane Salerno’s film about the reclusive author of The Catcher In The Rye is less a documentary than a slimy piece of publicity. Salerno has co-written a new book on the man, and apparently five new works by Salinger, who died in 2010, will be published between 2015 and 2020.
Consider this a two-hour promo for these J.D. Salinger products.
It certainly feels like a trailer at times, with soaring, bombastic music underscoring lofty pronouncements about Salinger’s genius and enduring popularity. Really, do we need Martin Sheen, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Cusack and Edward Norton to say he’s great?
How about a few naysayers?
Some rare photos of Salinger during the Second World War – including a picture of him working on Catcher – are intriguing, as is the information that his first wife may have had Nazi roots. (Remember, Salinger was half Jewish.)
Thankfully, Salerno explores his subject’s creepy fascination with young women. Interviews with two of his idealized innocents – Jean Miller, whom he met in his 30s when she was 14, and future novelist Joyce Maynard, who lived with him for a time – provide some insight into the man’s psyche and work.
Salerno attempts no literary analysis, however, and opts for embarrassing recreations that include pretentious episodes in which a tortured, chain-smoking figure paces the room and taps into a typewriter while scenes from his life play out on a screen behind him.
As Catcher’s anti-hero, Holden Caulfield, might say: these are so phony.
