“My Salinger Year” Movie Review by Josh Davis : Pop Culture Leftovers

“My Salinger Year” Movie Review by Josh Davis

April 4, 2021 9:19 am |

*A college grad takes a clerical job working for the literary agent of the renowned, reclusive writer J.D. Salinger.*

In “My Salinger Year,” the 2014 memoir by Joanna Rakoff, the author describes herself as being one of thousands of young women each day waking up in “the gray morning light of Brooklyn, Queens, the Lower East Side.” These thousands leave their apartments “weighed down by tote bags heavy with manuscripts,” grab coffee and something to eat at the corner bakery, and make their way to the hundreds of literary agencies that once dominated New York City.

The young women are almost identical. “We were girls, of course, all of us girls, emerging from the 6 train at Fifty-First Street … all of us clad in variations of a theme—the neat skirt and sweater, redolent of Sylvia Plath at Smith—each element purchased by parents in some comfortable suburb, for our salaries were so low we could barely afford our rent.”

Rakoff’s writing is tactile, at once sumptuous and grubby, describing the city with broad and romantic brushstrokes, and that part of life when coming of age has just started to move on from boundless optimism to the harsh, true light of reality.

As a film adaptation, “My Salinger Year” takes great care to bring Rakoff’s lush and vibrant words to life.

Margaret Qualley (“Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood”) stars as Joanna Rakoff, a fresh-out-of-grad-school writer who dreams of publishing her own work. She visits a friend in New York, falls in love with the city, and decides to stay. And like so many prospective young writers, she finds herself an entry-level job at a literary agency, so close to the books and authors she loves, but still so far away from actually becoming one of them.

This particular agency, it turns out, is steeped in history and was once home to Agatha Christie, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among others.

Joanna’s boss is an old-school agent named Margaret (played by the ineffable Sigourney Weaver) who refuses to have a computer in the office, even though it’s now the mid 1990s. She’s been in the business for three decades and runs the company as if it’s still 30 years ago, complete with clacking typewriters, bulky dictaphones and three-martini lunches in posh Manhattan restaurants.

Right away, Margaret mentions an important and enigmatic client named Jerry, who turns out to be J.D. Salinger, the infamously reclusive author of “Catcher in the Rye” (and several other classics) who stopped publishing new work in 1963. Among Joanna’s duties is answering Jerry’s fan mail with a series of form letters — which she is ordered to never deviate from, which, of course, she does.

Writer and director Philippe Falardeau (a “Best Foreign Language Film” Oscar nominee for the 2012 movie “Monsieur Lazhar”) brilliantly captures the essence of New York in the 90s, from the stuffy upperclass agency offices, to the downtrodden outer-borough apartments without sinks. Like any great period film set in a particular city, he makes the city into one of the stars.

There’s also a wonderful ensemble cast that includes Douglas Booth (“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”) as Joanna’s loutish boyfriend, Don; Seána Kerslake (“Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope”) as her understanding best friend, Jenny; and Yanic Truesdale (“Gilmore Girls”) and Colm Feore (“Trudeau”) as fellow agency workers.

Weaver has rarely been better and is alternately funny, intimidating, and even melancholy as a last-of-her-breed agent still hanging onto the old ways. She’s not quite as over-the-top and cruel as Meryl Streep in the comparable “The Devil Wears Prada,” but she’s commanding and, later on, even surprisingly empathetic toward Joanna.

As good as Weaver is, Qualley is downright luminous as Joanna Rakoff. She’s utterly believable as a highly educated book lover with big and big-hearted dreams. She’s also dorky as hell when she needs to be, and clearly at times over her head in the impossibly fathomless talent pool of New York City.

More than anything, Qualley is charming to watch as she discovers Salinger for herself and grows attached to the fervent fan base that still longs to connect with the author, despite decades of seclusion and having not published new work.

Falardeau frequently cuts to asides, from the Midwest to China, as Salinger fans seem to speak directly to Joanna. Moved by their words and unable to bear the cold format of the form letters, she starts writing back herself, offering advice and a human touch in response to those letters that really need it.

By doing so, and by falling in love with Salinger’s stories, Joanna learns more about herself as a person and as a writer, and separates herself from the thousands of other “girls, emerging from the 6 train at Fifty-First Street,” which was really the crux of Rakoff’s excellent memoir.

“My Salinger Year,” the movie, should be a delight for would-be writers, and for anyone who has ever loved a book so much that they felt like it was talking just to them. It’s also a funny, charming and smart film notable for another stellar performance by Weaver, and a star making turn by Qualley.

PCL Rating: Tupperware

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: FRESH