My Salinger Year
IFC Films | Release Date: March 5, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
50
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
8
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinMar 4, 2021
Joanna’s journey of creative and emotional enlightenment — including the balancing act of trying to write when consumed by a day job — is managed with grace, tenderness and touching credibility by a wonderfully winning Qualley in concert with Philippe Falardeau’s smart, engaging direction and screenplay. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 11, 2021
This cast and this world make for a grand escape from the mundane necessities of life as we’re immersed in a coming-of-age tale like few others, one that should make anybody with a soft spot for Salinger and empathy for those who had to “manage” him just a tad envious. Read full review
75
Original-CinThom ErnstMar 5, 2021
There are remarkable and rewarding moments in the film despite its lack of bite. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 5, 2021
In the borderline trifling but consistently amusing and wry period piece My Salinger Year, Qualley has the opportunity to carry the story, and she delivers an effortlessly endearing performance in a literary adventure that plays like The Devil Wears Prada meets Can You Ever Forgive Me, only at lower stakes. Read full review
67
The PlaylistJack KingFeb 26, 2020
While My Salinger Year is not always successful in the larger debate it tries to have around how we can define authorship, and how the commercialization of writing infringes upon creativity, the film’s central narrative following Joanna’s conflicting aspirations as a writer largely succeeds. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyMar 5, 2021
My Salinger Year sometimes drags and falters with questionable tonal shifts. But it’s never a complete waste of time to witness a young woman grow into her voice on her own terms, especially when her canvas is this cinematic. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 4, 2021
My Salinger Year isn’t much, but it isn’t phony. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesTara BradyMay 25, 2021
Watchable, if a bit lopsided, it’s far from the catastrophe that some of the more unkind reviews have suggested. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 26, 2020
Buoyed by an appealing duet of star turns from Margaret Qualley and Sigourney Weaver. Read full review
58
IndieWireEric KohnFeb 26, 2020
My Salinger Year often trips on the self-serious nature of its premise, and struggles with an antiquated quality out of sync with its timeline, as if trapped between the character’s genuine experiences and her idealized vision of a literary world that doesn’t really exist. Read full review
55
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzMar 1, 2021
After watching the film twice in quick succession – a futile attempt at catching a glimpse of what usually makes a Falardeau film so immensely watchable (see the Quebecois filmmaker’s Monsieur Lazhar, The Good Lie, My Internship in Canada and Chuck) – My Salinger Year ultimately lands as a mere footnote. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleDavid LewisMar 3, 2021
My Salinger Year, which is basically The Devil Wears Prada set in the literary world, is a film that feels like it’s ready to take off at any moment, but stalls every time it tries to do anything. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijFeb 26, 2020
The main issue with the film's screenplay, written by the director, is that it is trying to cover too much ground and yet be tonally light on its feet. Read full review
50
Screen DailyWendy IdeFeb 26, 2020
The transporting power of art is a difficult thing to capture in cinema at the best of times, and this film struggles to do so, leaning heavily on a score which signposts the emotional content of each scene a little too emphatically. Read full review
40
VarietyPeter DebrugeFeb 26, 2020
The movie doesn’t show a complex enough representation of either adult life or the New York literary world to offer much depth to grownups (it’s far more engaged with Joanna’s romantic life and dream sequences set at the Waldorf Astoria), which means that My Salinger Year must have been intended to inspire young women for whom 1995 seems like the ancient past. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineWes GreeneFeb 28, 2021
The film fails to effectively seize on how its main character’s life and work experiences have affected her as a person and artist. Read full review
30
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisMar 4, 2021
Muted almost to the point of effacement, this limp adaptation of Joanna Rakoff’s 2014 memoir, written and directed by Philippe Falardeau, only affirms that what might work on the page doesn’t always pop on the screen. Read full review
20
The GuardianPeter BradshawFeb 26, 2020
[A] bafflingly insipid, zestless, derivative film. Read full review
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