Salinger (2013)
Average Rating: 5.3/10
Reviews Counted: 78
Fresh: 27 | Rotten: 51
A so-so documentary about a fascinating personality, Salinger has moments of insight but is too often bogged down by reenactments and a lack of attention to the man's actual writings.
Average Rating: 5.3/10
Critic Reviews: 32
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 22
A so-so documentary about a fascinating personality, Salinger has moments of insight but is too often bogged down by reenactments and a lack of attention to the man's actual writings.
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Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 3,701
Movie Info
SALINGER features interviews with 150 subjects including Salinger's friends, colleagues and members of his inner circle who have never spoken on the record before as well as film footage, photographs and other material that has never been seen. Additionally, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Edward Norton, John Cusack, Danny DeVito, John Guare, Martin Sheen, David Milch, Robert Towne, Tom Wolfe, E.L. Doctorow, Gore Vidal and Pulitzer Prize winners A. Scott Berg and Elizabeth Frank talk about Salinger's
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Salinger Trailer & Photos
All Critics (78) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (27) | Rotten (51)
What emerges is a portrait of an enigma.
Top CriticWhere Salinger succeeds is in the gripping section on World War II, and in the exquisite, often melancholy details in the stories told by the likes of Joyce Maynard.
A good documentary can lead you to a place of not knowing what to believe about a subject. A bad documentary tells you what to believe, and why, but in ways provoking disbelief in the movie's tactics.
This documentary reconstructing the life of the ultimate cult author is like a three-act thriller, and the character at the center of the story is a mute man of mystery.
When [Salerno] drops the stylistic overkill and lets these people talk about Salinger, what emerges is a riveting picture of a contradictory, deeply selfish, troubled man.
Cataloging what's missing from Salerno's movie -- for instance, why "The Catcher in the Rye" worked, or didn't, and what it meant and still means to the American novel -- would run into the sports section.
a work that Holden Caufield would describe as a phony piece of crap.
About as complete a profile as one could reasonably wish for...a must-see for anyone with even a passing interest in the issue of how art can take on an uncontrollable life of its own.
An intriguing portrait of the reclusive genius. Very accessible.
He hated being famous.
Fatuous and infuriating, it's a shallow, superficial examination of a multi-layered, enigmatic author.
Buries a few nuggets in a mountain of repetition and overstatement.
Perpetuates a problem that the film fails to acknowledge: Artists' most devoted supporters frequently refuse to oblige their simple request to be left alone.
Salerno's depiction is intriguing and distinctly engaging.
Whether you have read "The Catcher in the Rye" before, or forgotten what you read years ago, or never picked up the book at all, this documentary may compel you to find a copy.
I have one thing to say to the director, "Sleep tight, ya moron!"
If you really want to keep your relationship to Catcher in the Rye sacred, don't see this film.
A distractingly bombastic music design starts at a thundering pitch and has nowhere to go but further.
Creepy hagiography, halo askew.
The treatment of J.D. Salinger's writing in this overwrought documentary is so inflated and pompous it comes as a relief when Judd Apatow shows up to describe The Catcher in the Rye as a funny book filled with great lines.
A fascinating and exhaustively researched portrait of a fascinating man.
Director Salerno struggles to provide the full picture of a man who didn't want his picture taken.
Audience Reviews for Salinger
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Salinger must be turning over in his grave! | 31 days ago | 0 |
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