MY SALINGER YEAR
****
Director: Philippe Falardeau
Screenplay: Philippe Falardeau, based on the eponymous book by Joanna Rakoff.
Principal cast:
Sigourney Weaver
Margaret Qualley
Douglas Booth
Séana Kerslake
Brian F. O’Byrne
Colm Feore
Country: Canada/Ireland
Classification: M
Runtime: 101 mins.
Australian release date: 14 January 2021.
Margaret Qualley was a stand-out in her small role as one of Charles Manson’s followers in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood and very good in the miniseries Fosse/Verdon, so it was easy to see that she was destined for bigger things. It’s not surprising when you consider that her mother is Andie MacDowell and her father a model, so one could assume that acting is in her genes. She was bound to start appearing as a lead actress before long and Philippe Falardeau’s My Salinger Year is the first film that she has had to carry largely on her own - she’s in almost every scene - and she’s terrific. Based on the best-selling memoir by Joanna Rakoff, it’s a novel coming-of-age movie about the year Rakoff spent working in the office of an old-school literary agency in the mid-1990s, an agency whose most famous client was J. D. Salinger, the reclusive author of Catcher in the Rye.
It’s the autumn of 1995 and Joanna (Qualley) is enrolled at the Berkeley campus of the University of California and staying with an old friend in New York City while on holiday. Enchanted with the Big Apple, she decides to stay, quitting her studies and leaving her boyfriend behind in San Francisco. She finagles her way into a job via an interview with the boss of the agency, Margaret (a marvellous turn from Sigourney Weaver), by pretending she’s more efficient at the typewriter than she really is. This is a time when computers were starting to become common in modern offices but Margaret doesn’t want anything to do with them. She says imperiously, “I’ve seen them in action. They just make more work for everyone.” Joanna’s principal job is to answer the fan mail that arrives in droves for “Jerry” (Salinger, played by Tim Post) on an old typewriter. Joanna writes poetry and aspires to be a professional writer one day but keeps this to herself because, “Writers make the worst assistants,” declares Margaret. She is required to merely retype pro forma responses written years earlier by a predecessor, never deviating from the standard answers, and then shred the fans’ letters. Joanna, though, can’t help but respond in a more heartfelt way until the day she tells one of her colleagues and, shocked, he exclaims, “You’ve crossed the line. It’s a huge rabbit hole, ethically and legally.” Will it mean the end of her job?
The French-Canadian director, Philippe Falardeau, gave us 2011’s Monsieur Lazhar and The Good Lie in 2014 and My Salinger Year is imbued with the same sense of decency and good will as those titles. He also wrote the script, a feat for someone writing in their second language, although he had some help from Rakoff. “The book is not story driven, and nor is the film,” he explains. “I like to paraphrase Joanna and describe it as ‘a visitation with a character.’ That being said, you have to create a minimum of tension and momentum in a film. I invented moments and events as mutation tools between literature and film… Turning a book into a film usually means making choices, creating composite characters and transforming the inner voice into concrete actions.” To his great joy, Rakoff approved of his fictional additions and encouraged him to go further; she also she assisted him in making sure the language was “period and generation accurate.”
Qualley is totally charming, hitting just the right notes in bringing the young Joanna to life, a girl/woman on the verge of becoming a fully-fledged adult. Weaver is a delight as the chain-smoking, martini-drinking Luddite who runs her agency as it has always been run, rarely making concessions for the changing world, and her character’s foibles are responsible for much of the humour in the screenplay. And indeed, some of the pathos. My Salinger Year is a treat; an entertaining, intelligent film with a lot more going on below the surface than first meets the eye.
Screenplay: Philippe Falardeau, based on the eponymous book by Joanna Rakoff.
Principal cast:
Sigourney Weaver
Margaret Qualley
Douglas Booth
Séana Kerslake
Brian F. O’Byrne
Colm Feore
Country: Canada/Ireland
Classification: M
Runtime: 101 mins.
Australian release date: 14 January 2021.
Margaret Qualley was a stand-out in her small role as one of Charles Manson’s followers in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood and very good in the miniseries Fosse/Verdon, so it was easy to see that she was destined for bigger things. It’s not surprising when you consider that her mother is Andie MacDowell and her father a model, so one could assume that acting is in her genes. She was bound to start appearing as a lead actress before long and Philippe Falardeau’s My Salinger Year is the first film that she has had to carry largely on her own - she’s in almost every scene - and she’s terrific. Based on the best-selling memoir by Joanna Rakoff, it’s a novel coming-of-age movie about the year Rakoff spent working in the office of an old-school literary agency in the mid-1990s, an agency whose most famous client was J. D. Salinger, the reclusive author of Catcher in the Rye.
It’s the autumn of 1995 and Joanna (Qualley) is enrolled at the Berkeley campus of the University of California and staying with an old friend in New York City while on holiday. Enchanted with the Big Apple, she decides to stay, quitting her studies and leaving her boyfriend behind in San Francisco. She finagles her way into a job via an interview with the boss of the agency, Margaret (a marvellous turn from Sigourney Weaver), by pretending she’s more efficient at the typewriter than she really is. This is a time when computers were starting to become common in modern offices but Margaret doesn’t want anything to do with them. She says imperiously, “I’ve seen them in action. They just make more work for everyone.” Joanna’s principal job is to answer the fan mail that arrives in droves for “Jerry” (Salinger, played by Tim Post) on an old typewriter. Joanna writes poetry and aspires to be a professional writer one day but keeps this to herself because, “Writers make the worst assistants,” declares Margaret. She is required to merely retype pro forma responses written years earlier by a predecessor, never deviating from the standard answers, and then shred the fans’ letters. Joanna, though, can’t help but respond in a more heartfelt way until the day she tells one of her colleagues and, shocked, he exclaims, “You’ve crossed the line. It’s a huge rabbit hole, ethically and legally.” Will it mean the end of her job?
The French-Canadian director, Philippe Falardeau, gave us 2011’s Monsieur Lazhar and The Good Lie in 2014 and My Salinger Year is imbued with the same sense of decency and good will as those titles. He also wrote the script, a feat for someone writing in their second language, although he had some help from Rakoff. “The book is not story driven, and nor is the film,” he explains. “I like to paraphrase Joanna and describe it as ‘a visitation with a character.’ That being said, you have to create a minimum of tension and momentum in a film. I invented moments and events as mutation tools between literature and film… Turning a book into a film usually means making choices, creating composite characters and transforming the inner voice into concrete actions.” To his great joy, Rakoff approved of his fictional additions and encouraged him to go further; she also she assisted him in making sure the language was “period and generation accurate.”
Qualley is totally charming, hitting just the right notes in bringing the young Joanna to life, a girl/woman on the verge of becoming a fully-fledged adult. Weaver is a delight as the chain-smoking, martini-drinking Luddite who runs her agency as it has always been run, rarely making concessions for the changing world, and her character’s foibles are responsible for much of the humour in the screenplay. And indeed, some of the pathos. My Salinger Year is a treat; an entertaining, intelligent film with a lot more going on below the surface than first meets the eye.