Salinger

Director Shane Salerno examines the life of J.D. Salinger, whose novel The Catcher in the Rye made him the Leo Tolstoy of angry adolescence and sent him into an allegedly reclusive life in New England. I say “allegedly” because Salerno argues convincingly that Salinger wasn't so much a recluse as simply not a publicity hound or professional celebrity (think Truman Capote). The subject is fascinating, of course, but at 120 minutes, the movie is about half-an-hour too long: Salerno pads things out with repetition (one 1940s portrait of Salinger seems to pop up every five minutes), and with borderline-banal comments from several talking heads (John Cusack, Edward Norton, Martin Sheen, etc.) who certainly never knew the writer and have nothing much to add—they seem to be here only because they're famous.