An air of possibility permeates “My Salinger Year,” the kind one typically inhales in their younger days, wondering with impatience and curiosity what the future might hold. The wide-eyed pull of this sensation is so powerful in the otherwise mild and docile film’s early moments that you can’t help but ease into the story’s allure at once.
Set against the backdrop of New York’s intellectual literary scene of the mid ‘90s, the near-period “My Salinger Year” has something else that will be instantly recognizable to most people, especially to those working in more artistic and unconventional fields. That thing is the silent panic of being stuck doing a job that was supposed to be just temporary; perhaps a bill-paying springboard towards idealized pursuits and career goals. So when the young, spirited, poetry-loving recent-graduate Joanna Rakoff (Margaret Qualley) nabs one such gig as a literary agency assistant in “Monsieur Lazhar” filmmaker Philippe Falardeau’s movie, you can’t help but feel for the aspiring writer. You wish for her success at this transition, while rooting for her eventual departure, just so she can pursue her actual vision of the future before years slip away.
My Salinger Year Trailer
My Salinger Year Rotten Tomatoes
'My Salinger Year' is briskly paced, charmingly scripted, sprinkled with spunky humor, sports unexpectedly warm, colorful photography (with keen composition), and has breezy performances all around. New York in the 90s: After leaving graduate school to pursue her dream of becoming a writer, Joanna gets hired as an assistant to Margaret, the stoic and old-fashioned literary agent of J.