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Reclusive Salinger and the challenge of a good yarn

Robyn Sassen
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JUST write: Nicholas Hoult is JD Salinger. Photograph courtesy comingsoon.net

AN UTTERLY COMPELLING reflection on the terrifying reality of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the value of an editor, Danny Strong’s film Rebel in the Rye starts off with sheer charisma, a great sense of authenticity and a tough confrontation with what it takes to be a published writer and what this means for the pocket and the craft.

Telling the life story of American writer JD Salinger, the work flows beautifully up until it tells of the unmitigated success of his first novel, Catcher in the Rye. At that point, the narrative thread becomes lost in too much slavish attention to detail. It is a well made piece which won’t lose you because of its polish, pizzazz and sheer beauty and because of the footholds the first part of the work have established in your sensibilities, but it unwinds disappointingly without the momentum with which it began.

Nicholas Hoult plays an utterly gorgeous Jerry Salinger: he’s focused yet dispassionate, is able to go into melt down as he’s able to shut off communication with the world. He’s a young man of the 1930s with all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, with its jazz and booze and the stars of the era, which include Eugene O’Neill, Truman Capote and Charlie Chaplin. Lighting, set, cinematography and costume come together in reflecting the texture and nuance of the 1930s with a sense of brutal truth. And as such, Salinger is a perfect cipher for the creation of the quintessential 20th century novel, as he breathes life into Holden Caulfield, the uncompromising voice of the youth of the era and Catcher’s main character.

As you watch Salinger confront and challenge his dreams, he concatenates against rejection time and time again, and as a very well worn Whit Burnett (Kevin Spacey), a university teacher and mentor, offers him the emotional wherewithal to become who he must, you get to understand a little of the context of what it takes to become a creative professional. Salinger’s is a world, where no one takes your job as a writer of stories seriously and where the challenges to perform are stiffer than in any other field.

You also get to see the muscle of editorial impetus where Salinger is guided by The New Yorker to tweak his work further and make it even better. You’re explained the difference between a writer and a masturbator, and given a handle on the value of the voice in a story. And above all, you’re exposed to the idea of the Novel, as an almost sacred term and you get to see the inner workings of a writer who knows his own talent but is humbled by the industry’s trajectory of heroes, the makers of masterpieces.

And essentially, the nub of the film is captured in this first half. However, every single woman in the work, without fail, is represented as a tough and hard-edged bitch, overwhelmingly whiny and shallow in her judgey perspectives. It is the men who embrace the story’s guts and stamina, and resoundingly, the film offers deep insight into how war infiltrates Salinger so profoundly it alters how his soul is constituted; you see him fight hard against the kicks and pricks of life and memory to retain his dignity and carry on writing.

While the work is clustered with nuggets from The Catcher in the Rye, and offers insight into the complex character that Salinger developed into, it’s not an unequivocally satisfying or moving watch, but rather one which runs out of emotional steam as it goes. Yes, Salinger made some decisions about the future of his writing career which were not sexy in the Hollywood sense – by electing never to publish again and secluding himself in a house in a wood for the rest of his life, he effectively closed his personal doors to the kind of smarmy happily-ever-after tale or dirt-picking foray that Hollywood loves, and the production team behind this film try their best to honour this as earnestly as they can, but something is lost. Indeed, had the latter part of the film been cropped with a tighter editorial hand, more might have been left unstated, and the work might have retained its ability to sing.

 

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