Promise aside, Salinger biopic falls flat

MOVIE REVIEW /

A great movie could certainly be made about the eventful life of J.D. Salinger, author of “The Catcher in the Rye.”

“Rebel in the Rye,” however, isn’t such a movie.

Even its title feels kind of off-brand, as if chosen for alliteration rather than art or sense.

Danny Strong’s film — which stars Nicholas Hoult as Salinger (Jerry to his friends, Sonny to his family) — isn’t terrible; it’s just one of those period films that never catches a spark — you find yourself admiring the elegantly lit rooms and the meticulous 1940s costumes, rather than becoming immersed in the drama.

The movie is both Directed by Danny Strong.

PG-13 (for some language including sexual references, brief violence, and smoking) 1:46 at the Drexel and Gateway theaters

small-scale and sprawling, covering a number of years in Salinger’s life. It begins with his college days in 1939, when young Jerry — smart-mouthed but talented — took a writing class from Whit Burnett (Kevin Spacey), editor of Story magazine, who would become an essential mentor.

“Rebel” takes us through Salinger’s years of military service during World War II, his emotional problems after the war, his emergence as a writer, and his eventual seclusion in rural New Hampshire — where, for the last 40-plus years of his life, he never published another word.

The film, too brief for the ground it covers, barely depicts Salinger’s war experiences (and what it does show us looks unconvincing), leaving us to puzzle out what happened to him afterward: an unexplained German wife who almost instantly disappears, bouts of what would now be called post-traumatic stress disorder and frightening flashbacks at dinner parties.

Hoult has a nicely wicked grin when he plays Salinger’s cockiness, but he doesn’t let us inside; we don’t know where the writing comes from or exactly what died inside him.

Meanwhile, Spacey’s Burnett swaggers around, enacting every imaginable Failed Writer Who Becomes a Teacher Cliche. (To be fair, Spacey doing a deadpan drunk is pretty funny.) And the rest of the cast struggles with dialogue that probably looked better on the page, such as Salinger’s father (Victor Garber) intoning that “meat and cheese distribution has been very good to this family.”

“Rebel in the Rye” is based on the 2011 biography “J.D. Salinger: A Life,” by Kenneth Slawenski.

The film left me wanting to check out the book, so perhaps, as a biopic, it has done its job.

You can’t help wondering, though, what it might have been.