40
Metascore
28 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- Given that this isn’t the extended TV mini-series that the subject deserves, Salinger does an effective job of making the writer seem alternately more mundane and more mysterious, almost at the same time.
- 60Time OutDavid FearTime OutDavid FearThough 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.
- 60The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberThe Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberAlthough 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.
- 50Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment WeeklyAt 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.
- 42The A.V. ClubThe A.V. ClubWhen 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.
- 40VarietyAndrew BarkerVarietyAndrew BarkerIt’s difficult to get past the film’s restless, ill-fittingly bombastic style.
- 38Slant MagazineSteve MacfarlaneSlant MagazineSteve MacfarlaneAn outsized A&E Biography episode coursing with the strident urgency typical to anyone convinced they have something new to say on a long since played-out topic.
- 20Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlVillage VoiceAlan ScherstuhlWhat the movie gets hilariously, howlingly wrong is the idea that a life like Salinger's—so extraordinary, yet so willfully humdrum—could somehow be captured by the most shopworn of cinematic techniques.
- 10The DissolveNathan RabinThe DissolveNathan RabinSalinger thinks it’s big, important news, but it’s barely a footnote.