The first shot in Rebel in the Rye is of a broken down man staring at the Central Park carousel. This isn’t an adaptation of The Catcher in the Rye and it isn’t quite a biopic of its author, JD Salinger. It’s more like a “making of” story, the long struggle to get the novel about the disaffected teen in a red hunting cap on to the page and out into the world. Though this telling has more than its share of well-worn story beats that Salinger’s hero Holden Caulfield might accuse of being phoney, there are enough occasional insights into the creative process, as well as juicy tidbits about the secretive Salinger, to make this a very agreeable, if at times shallow, watch.
Barring a few time jumps, our story begins as Jerry Salinger (Nicholas Hoult) enters the Columbia University creative writing class of the Story magazine editor Whit Burnett, a droll-as-hell Kevin Spacey, whose theatrical lectures are, quite frankly, more succinct and penetrating than any college class I ever took. Under Burnett’s tutelage, Salinger learns to reel in his clever voice for the sake of narrative, finding a harmony that (as most 20th-century readers would agree) made him one of the greatest American writers.
After Burnett first publishes Salinger, things start looking up. His self-loathing Jewish father (Victor Garber) still wants him to get a real job, but being published helps Jerry “get the girl”, in this case Zoey Deutch’s Oona O’Neill. Then, two catastrophes strike. First, the New Yorker, Jerry’s dream publication, won’t accept his latest story unless he heeds the magazine’s notes. Second, Japan invades Pearl Harbor. Jerry joins the army and, just before his D-Day deployment, he gets some extra salt in the wound when Oona leaves him for Charlie Chaplin, 36 years her senior. Salinger’s war experience, which included liberating a concentration camp, sent him into mental breakdown (and lifelong PTSD), but the thing that kept him safe during his time in Europe was writing about Holden Caulfield.
The return to America (with a temporary war bride) has its share of setbacks, and this is where the first-time writer-director Danny Strong (best known as a character actor) sinks into a pit of cliche. All of the originality from Burnett’s classroom is nearly derailed by Salinger’s slow climb back to his typewriter. (Let’s face it, you can shoot up from the bottom of the keys, but there just aren’t too many ways to make writing cinematic.)
With the help of a Buddhist teacher, Salinger eventually finds the clarity to publish the book, and American culture is transformed. But so is Salinger. Besieged by fans and further enamored of vaguely zen teachings, he finds his final form as a hermit banging away at stories nobody will ever read in a New Hampshire bunker.
The second half of the movie is interesting inasmuch as watching any real-life genius go bananas is interesting. But the extreme compression of time (plus the fact that none of the actors age) eventually becomes laughable. Then there’s the most cringeworthy end card since The Imitation Game’s “today we call them computers”.
Other than Spacey’s, none of the performances are more than fine. Strong’s evocation of the era with small nightclubs and apartments are what one does on a lower budget, but the world doesn’t feel particularly lived in. There’s a scene in which Salinger explains why he’ll never allow a film version of The Catcher In The Rye. Even though this movie holds your attention and isn’t bad, one can’t help but agree it wouldn’t have been a crime if this one never got made either.
