My Salinger Year – first look review | Little White Lies

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My Salinger Year – first look review

20 Feb 2020

Words by Lou Thomas

A young woman sits at a desk, holding a document in her hands. She is wearing a patterned blouse and her surroundings include framed photographs, desk lamps, and other office equipment.
A young woman sits at a desk, holding a document in her hands. She is wearing a patterned blouse and her surroundings include framed photographs, desk lamps, and other office equipment.
Mar­garet Qual­ley and Sigour­ney Weaver star in this under­stat­ed lit­er­ary dra­ma, based on Joan­na Rakoff’s memoir.

In My Salinger Year, a refined, sen­si­tive adap­ta­tion of Joan­na Rakoff’s epony­mous mem­oir about her stint work­ing as an assis­tant at New York’s old­est lit­er­ary agency, Mar­garet Qual­ley plays Joan­na, a young stu­dent who leaves her stud­ies and boyfriend Karl in Cal­i­for­nia to make it in the Big Apple.

When Joan­na lands a job as an assis­tant at the agency” (actu­al­ly Harold Ober Asso­ciates but unnamed in the film and Rakoff’s book), she is warned about tak­ing great care in deal­ing with an impor­tant client, referred to sim­ply as Jer­ry”. As one may sur­mise from the title, Jer­ry is JD Salinger. By 1995, when the film is set, the agency had been refus­ing to pass on fan mail to recluse Salinger for more than 30 years, while still send­ing boil­er­plate rejec­tions back to fans.

This oner­ous task is giv­en to Joan­na in between bouts of typ­ing dic­ta­tion for her boss Mar­garet (Sigour­ney Weaver), and as she reads back the sad, hope­ful and des­per­ate let­ters, the writ­ers appear on screen, speak­ing direct­ly to cam­era from their offices, fish­ing trips and ice-cream par­lour jobs. It’s a gen­tly imag­i­na­tive touch in a film that’s per­formed and shot with care but could do with more flour­ish­es of this kind. There is also a brief, delight­ful dance sequence lat­er on, but oth­er­wise direc­tor Philippe Falardeau cap­tures the stuffi­ness of agency life a lit­tle too well.

When Joan­na breaks eti­quette and responds to a fan let­ter with hon­esty, one half-expects the film to detour into ter­ri­to­ry explored in Marielle Heller’s supe­ri­or Can You Ever For­give Me? – a New York lit­er­ary mem­oir with vivac­i­ty and ener­gy to spare. As it is, we’re stuck with The Dev­il Wears Pra­da for book­worms. This is not to say the film is joy­less though. There is fun and heart in Joanna’s bur­geon­ing phone friend­ship with Salinger him­self, and Qual­ley brings plen­ty of charm to her wannabe-poet game­ly tack­ling cler­i­cal work.

Inevitably, Joan­na is entrust­ed with more impor­tant aspects of her job, such as coach­ing an inde­pen­dent pub­lish­er ahead of an impor­tant, secret meet­ing with Salinger. She aces that and is lat­er tasked with real agent work such as sell­ing author sto­ries to mag­a­zines. The new­found con­fi­dence affects her per­son­al life when she gets shot of los­er boyfriend Don (Dou­glas Booth, play­ing a douchebag yet again) after he refus­es to take her to his best friend’s wedding.

Weaver is typ­i­cal­ly excel­lent as severe, set-in-her-ways Mar­garet, and there is mild mirth in her rejec­tion of the com­put­er age, as well as pathos when she suf­fers grief at the death of a loved one. The trou­ble with Margaret’s char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion – while it may be true to the book – is that there’s not enough bite. A pleas­ant and divert­ing film, then, that may leave you crav­ing more of the ego­tism and ran­cour that seems to seep from every pore of New York’s lit­er­ary scene.

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