After finally publishing and achieving overnight success with Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger refused offers to sell the rights to a production company, insisting that no film could do the story of Holden Caulfield justice. It’s ironic, then, that screenwriter Danny Strong’s biopic, and directorial debut, about the famously reclusive Salinger fails to do any justice to the author. Nicholas Hoult makes a believable, if bland, Salinger, but he’s hardly given the chance to explore Salinger as a person. Rebel in the Rye is just as unoriginal as its title, satisfied to present the Cliffs Notes version of Salinger’s life without engaging with his experiences and motivations. As the film swiftly moves through his career, offering snapshots of important events, there’s less of an expectation that viewers will know Salinger’s history by heart and more of a willingness to hope that they get the gist and don’t focus on the half-hearted attempt at narrative.
When we first meet Salinger, he’s a cocky writing student at Columbia locking horns with his professor, Whit Burnett (Kevin Spacey). We have no reason to suspect him of harboring great writing skills, and Strong doesn’t offer much in the way of evidence of these talents as the film goes on. After some soul-crushing, repeated rejection for the sake of testing Salinger’s commitment, Burnett admits that Salinger’s writing captured his unique voice perfectly. The most the audience hears of that writing is voice-over snippets, a convenient filler for montages throughout the period in which Salinger writes Catcher. And that’s indicative of the shortcuts and cliché devices that Strong reverts to throughout.
Serving more as a breezy tour through the life of Salinger, Rebel swiftly and unceremoniously introduces a cast of characters who never develop beyond their roles in the author’s life – and some are lucky if they have lines. There’s Salinger’s father, Sol (Victor Garber), who constantly pushes him to pursue lucrative career paths, which doesn’t include writing. Oona O’Neill (Zoey Deutch) appears as an enticing socialite, but the importance of their relationship to Salinger is totally lost. At least her arrival and departure in the film weren’t inexplicable surprises; the same can’t be said for Salinger’s first wife, Sylvia Welter (Anna Bullard). Later in his writing career, Salinger seeks out the support of literary agent Dorothy Olding (Sarah Paulson, who might as well be in another film entirely) and Swami Nikhilananda (Bernard White). The scenes surrounding these characters have about as much exposition as that cast rundown.
The fraught emotions that informed Salinger’s life, work and professional decisions aren’t portrayed well through Strong’s writing or even Hoult’s acting. Dropping in quotes from Salinger instead provides the miniscule support for the film’s ambiguous events. We hear Hoult as Salinger repeat that he would be willing to write for his entire life and never receive anything in return, but it would be nice if such devotion to the art and desire to purge his feelings through writing were reflected in script or performance. Without truly connecting with the character, his treatment of his second wife, Claire Douglas (Lucy Boynton), and irrational grudge against Burnett paint Salinger as a self-centered ass and nothing more.
One of the most glaring flaws in Rebel is highlighted by an unanswered question within the script. Salinger is asked more than once where the character of Holden came from, and his vague responses indicate that there is certainly something of himself in the character. Strong’s script, however, doesn’t allow viewers to witness and empathize with Salinger’s emotional turmoil during and after serving in WWII, the disheartening struggle to have Catcher published nor a true glimpse into the mindset that led him to leave all of that literary success behind for a life in the country. Rather than pull the audience into Salinger’s world, Rebel forgoes all opportunities for real empathy and presents Salinger’s life story with a detached, perfunctory air.
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