Educational Media Reviews Online

In this production, the filmmakers seem to seek to reveal the secrets behind J.D. Salinger's life and reclusive nature. The film summarizes what little is known about Salinger's life, interspersed with interviews from a group that includes childhood friends, a cousin, and a former lover. The interviews with Salinger's childhood peers are the strength of the film, particularly the interview with Alfred Sanelli who went to the Valley Forge Military Academy with Salinger. He talks about Salinger as a young man, describing him as "a cut above" and talking about how closely Valley Forge resembled the fictitious Pencey in The Catcher in the Rye. Some of the other interviews are not as strong. When Barry Brown, who knew Salinger for a brief time at the age of 11, starts offering theories on why Salinger is currently not publishing, one must question how authoritative a source Brown is.

A film may not have been the best way to communicate the information found here. The narration and the visual images are often not connected. Rather generic footage of New York City and Central Park are shown while the narrator talks about Salinger's childhood without ever commenting on the sights we are seeing and how they relate to Salinger's life and work. A scene of a young girl running through a field of rye while a man reads excerpts from The Catcher in the Rye is a bit over the top. Several clips show various residents of Cornish, the town where Salinger currently resides, refusing to tell the filmmakers where the writer's home is. Then, finally, we see someone drawing a map. The filmmakers drive the audience up what is presumably Salinger's street, show a far-off view of his house, and show the mailbox at the end of his driveway without positively identifying them as such. A piece of film Salinger obviously does not know is being taken of him is shown again and again. This is the kind of journalism one expects from Hard Copy, not literary biography.

In the end, there is nothing new here. The fact that Salinger is a recluse who does not want to be disturbed is well-documented. The audience gets glimpses of a young Salinger in the interviews, but one doesn't really learn much of significance. Joyce Maynard's story, which certainly provides a unique perspective as a former lover, has been widely disseminated in other arenas. At $149, one must really question whether this information is worth the price. Not recommended.