Salinger
Your Score
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out of 10
User Score
Generally favorable reviews- based on 7 Ratings
- Starring: Edward Norton, John Cusack, Judd Apatow, Martin Sheen, Philip Seymour Hoffman
- Summary: A feature documentary on the formative personal and professional experiences of the reclusive author J.D. Salinger.
- Director: Shane Salerno
- Genre(s): Documentary
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
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Positive: 8 out of 28
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Mixed: 9 out of 28
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Negative: 11 out of 28
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Sep 3, 201383Given that this isn’t the extended TV mini-series that the subject deserves, Salinger does an effective job of making the writer seem alternately more mundane and more mysterious, almost at the same time.
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75Insightful gems are unearthed throughout the flawed but engrossing Salinger,a much-anticipated documentary about the author of The Catcher in the Rye.
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75This 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. Salinger would have recognized the irony, even as he hated the film for invading his privacy.
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40Salerno spends more time talking to photographers with telephoto lenses who, over the decades, laid in wait for Salinger in the hope of capturing a grainy picture, than he does talking to literary analysts and historians.
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38Salerno blows little more than smoke in this one, especially near the end, when we get to the maybe-probably-sort-ofs regarding the maybe-probably-possibly full vault of unpublished work.
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37While some of the stories are interesting, the film is much longer than it needs to be. For his part, Salerno tries to get creative with solutions for the lack of visual stimuli, but most attempts fail.
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0That mystery is certainly hardy enough to withstand the voyeuristic onslaught of this self-aggrandizing, lurid documentary, which leaves the viewer feeling that we’ve been given a tour of Salinger’s septic tank in hip waders without ever getting to knock on his door and say hello.
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1 out of 1
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Mixed: 0 out of 1
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Negative: 0 out of 1
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Sep 13, 20136
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