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Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Critic Consensus: No consensus yet.
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All Critics (78) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (56)
We see the young Salinger stuck at his desk lighting matches and throwing pages in the garbage. We see his trembling hand hovering above a page. There is sometimes music. When all else fails, there's a montage.
A faithful and often moving look in the life of J.D. Salinger, a warts-and-all portrayal that succeeds in large part because of a dynamically persuasive performance by Nicholas Hoult.
With Rebel in the Rye, we get a solid, well-acted and basically standard biopic.
It's not without its charms and solid observations about the perils and passions of the writerly life, but it's too blunt, too neat, and entirely too starry-eyed about both the creator and his creation.
If Jones doesn't quite pull it off, it is at least a film of many pleasures and a thought-provoking look at American literature's most famous loner.
You do see how Salinger's own words, thoughts and actions were reflected in the character of Holden.
The environment is immersive and the story is engrossing, even though neither filmmaker Strong nor actor Hoult tries overly hard to make Jerry sympathetic.
With too long of a running time, the potential biography only tells the same story of a misunderstood writer, that becomes boring and hard to watch.
It has all the makings of a solid biopic, but lacks the execution and most essentially, the heart.
Rebel in the Rye is so eager to be a transcript for [The] Catcher in the Rye that it constantly seeks to equate the author with the fictional teenager, even when the author was much older... [Full Review in Spanish]
Any reader of Salinger will be disappointed. Any reader of Salinger would have liked to see it. [Full Review in Spanish]
Danny Strong's film suggests dramatic Tetris, and it leeches J.D. Salinger and his process of any mystery.
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