Salinger
Weinstein Company, The | Release Date: September 6, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
40
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
9
Negative:
11
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranSep 5, 2013
Salerno, as if he's unsure of what he's got, goes to great lengths to heighten the drama with crisp editing, a strong score, frequent sound effects and snappy visuals. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberSep 4, 2013
Although it is overlong, it manages to be fascinating for much of its running time. But it also disappoints on many counts, providing another example of hype outpacing actual achievement -- a syndrome that Salinger himself would probably have deplored. Read full review
60
Time OutDavid FearSep 3, 2013
Though there’s no shortage of biographies on the notoriously private writer, no one has had the stones to try making a comprehensive visual documentary on someone as camera-aversive as the Catcher in the Rye author. The effort itself should be applauded. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMichael OrdonaSep 19, 2013
Salinger does what so many documentaries and biopics either fail to do or decline to attempt; it speculates convincingly on the connective tissue between the life and the work of the subject. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyTina JordanAug 28, 2013
At two hours and nine minutes, Salinger is at least 40 minutes too long, suffering, just like the book, from its creators' obsessive zeal. Only here, you can't page ahead to the next chapter. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubKyle RyanSep 5, 2013
When Salinger succeeds, it’s in spite of Salerno’s heavy hand and because of the implicit intrigue of J.D. Salinger’s life story. For a director who clearly reveres his subject’s work, he doesn’t grasp how the flashy, eardrum-busting pomp and circumstance of his film is exactly the kind of thing Salinger abhorred. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenSep 18, 2013
Salerno 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. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 9, 2013
The fact that the movie’s focus is how and why he renounced the world, moved to Cornish, New Hampshire, and stopped publishing makes it worse, somehow. Salerno probably didn’t mean it this way, but he gives you the impression he came to mock his subject: We’ve got you now, you antisocial bastard. Read full review
40
VarietyAndrew BarkerSep 4, 2013
It’s difficult to get past the film’s restless, ill-fittingly bombastic style. Read full review
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