[VIFF 2020] REVIEW: 'My Salinger Year' thankfully doesn't last that long
Margaret Qualley as Joanna in My Salinger Year. Photo by: Philippe Bossé. Courtesy of Mongrel Media
There was a time when I really liked Catcher in the Rye. I was in high school when I first read it, so I was exactly its target demographic. But, as the years passed, my interest in Holden Caulfield began to wane, and by the time I entered adulthood, Holden was an annoying, immature, self-centred hoodlum. It takes quite a bit of empathy, or at least some form of shared experience, to connect with him; otherwise, it’s a frustrating read that makes you want to throw the book across the room.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t throw my computer across the room (it’s much too expensive) because that’s how I felt for most of My Salinger Year, Philippe Falardeau’s adaptation of Joanna Rakoff’s memoir. Set in 1995, Joanna (Margaret Qualley) is an idealistic 20-something wannabe writer who has recently decided to skip a semester at Berkeley and remain in New York. She’s quickly hired at a publisher that represents reclusive author J.D. Salinger and works directly underneath big boss Margaret (Sigourney Weaver), but instead of becoming a writer and reading manuscripts, Joanna is tasked with reading and answering Salinger’s fan mail with prepared templates. Slowly, Joanna’s enthusiasm (lack of self-awareness? indiscretion? cynicism?) gets the better of her and – whether it was Falardeau’s intention or not – begins to exude some of Holden’s anti-establishment qualities.
There are various moments throughout the film where I was left scratching my head, to the point where I wasn’t quite sure how to tie everything together for this review. But I kept coming back to these five main points where the film either missed the mark or left me absolutely bewildered.
1. Be gone, Daniel, Hugh, Don and Karl
The stars of this film were always undoubtedly going to be Qualley and Weaver, and they should’ve left it that. Their chemistry wasn’t perfect (more on that later), but each of the men in the film had questionable purpose: Daniel, Margaret’s business and occasional life partner, made little, if any, life-changing impact on any of the characters despite a tragic ending; Hugh, the agency’s resourceful legal expert, inexplicably enables Joanna’s increasingly unethical behaviour with motivations that are never made clear; Don, Joanna’s lumpy love interest, is a stereotypical art-house and totally uninteresting wannabe novelist boyfriend with a poor credit score who totally uses her and gaslights her for the sake of – oh, I don’t know – MORE DRAMA; and then there’s Karl, the ex-boyfriend Joanna leaves behind at Berkeley who is neither a push nor pull, but ends up rekindling their relationship through an inexplicably spontaneous and unnecessary dance number.
Sigourney Weaver as Margaret and Margaret Qualley as Joanna. Photo by: micro_scope. Courtesy of Mongrel Media
2. Margaret was far too nice
The too-easy comparison would be The Devil Wears Prada, and maybe it’s unfair, but Falardeau invites that comparison from the first moment we meet Margaret. On Joanna’s first day, Margaret does her best Streep impersonation, swooping past Joanna’s desk without saying a word. The only thing missing was the coat toss and a death stare from Emily Blunt. It even copies the line about how there’s someone else ready to step into Joanna’s shoes if she doesn’t want the job. And there’s even a scene in which Joanna visits Margaret at her residence, and the two are supposed to have some kind of cathartic heart-to-heart. But Margaret is much more mentor than tyrant, which is rather strange because… aren’t we supposed to hate the boss for not letting Joanna do her thing?
3. Joanna’s relationship with the letter writers was underplayed
The most interesting part of the film was how Falardeau made the decision to give the letter writers a face and a voice. One of them is Caulfield-esque; played by Theodore Pellerin, he should’ve had a bigger role, if only to give Joanna more reason to engage and respond to their letters. Instead, Pellerin is credited as the “Boy from Winston-Salem” – a fitting name for a character Falardeau clearly has very little regard for – and only one of the letter writers – credited with similar nonchalance as “High school girl” (Romane Denis) – gets any meaningful interaction with Joanna even though their faces and voices are very much the driving forces behind Joanna’s actions.
4. This is definitely not 1995
The film’s set in 1995, because it clearly says so in the opening titles, but you could’ve fooled me. The computer was about the only thing that felt like 1995; the rest felt like a poor version of Mad Men. Where is the grunge, the pencil-thin eyebrows and the long straight hair? There was a passing mention of sweaters with hoods, but look at those Peter Pan collars on Joanna’s dress, the clothes everyone else wears and the building she lives in and the furniture at the office. It feels more like 1965, which is probably intentional because there’s a subplot about Hapworth 16, 1924, but it’s a mystery what the idiosyncrasy adds to the film. Maybe I’m just too far removed from the publishing world, but Falardeau also makes this film totally inaccessible with its snobbish habit of having Joanna or Don name drop famous writers on a one-name basis, like the first-year university students you meet at parties who give off an aggressively insecure vibe about their own (or the film’s) self-worth.
5. Margaret Qualley was miscast
Her performance was good, but Qualley does not give off the vibe of a nerdy book girl, and she showed little chemistry with Weaver. Every time Joanna tries to come off polite – on the phone with Salinger, every nervous laugh, every time her arms are in a pretzel during an awkward situation or imbalanced power dynamic – it seems oddly insincere. She’s better off as the edgy girl who brings a gun to a knife fight, not the wide-eyed doe who’s given a heavy dose of reality.
My Salinger Year gets one and a half stars out of four.
