8DOWNTOWN MONITOR Thursday, September 14, 2017

CINEMA CULTURE

J.D.'s 'Rebel in the Rye' is a Selfish Kind of Guy

Paul Arlon

con King’ of New York. J.D.’s mother sees more in

him than that, and forces his reluctant father to buy him a seat in the class-room of one of the most respected writing teach-ers of the time, Columbia’s Whit Burnett (played by Kevin Spacey). Burnett takes a shine to

the uniquely sardonic and sarcastic Salinger. They wind sharing deep ideas about writing along with the wet end of countless bottles of Scotch. And, J.D. gets to make a play for Oona, who is now more interested in the growing confidence of the young writer. And, then, we have WWII.

A disillusioned J.D. suffers the horrors of war and is forever changed. Nothing exists of his old personali-ty or his way of relating to the world. The only thing that remained constant throughout the trauma of his war experiences, was his storytelling, and the presence in his mind of his fictional alter ego, Holden Caulfield. When he had paper and

pen, he would write. When he was without pa-

the idea of positioning himself in her circle as a writer, just like her fa-mous father. Oona, how-ever has a very protective entourage, and they make quick work of ferreting out J.D.’s potential. He hasn’t had anything pub-lished, he admits, at which point, Oona is quickly dragged away from him, so as to flirt with a more successful boy. J.D. vows to have Oona’s

sole attention, and he makes fast moves to be-come a writer – someone who can show the world, and especially Eugene O’Neill’s daughter, that, in-

deed, he has a voice worth listening to. His mother (Hope Davis) is his big-gest promoter, knowing that he’s just got to be special, in some way, even though he’s been booted from every school that had initially put up with his smart-ass rudeness and purposeful lack of ef-fort. J.D.’s new life plan: Take up Creative Writing at Columbia – an expen-sive proposition for his fa-ther (Victor Garber) who doesn’t believe his son has any tools for success whatsoever. If his dad had his way, J.D. would sell meat and become the ‘Ba-

Rebel in the Rye is a mov-ie about a book. Or, more to the point, about the writer of a book. Of course, this is the

literary life story of the reclusive and mysteri-ous J.D. Salinger and his magnum opus of teenage angst personified, Holden Caulfield, the main char-acter in the Catcher in the Rye—one of the most widely read and critically praised books of the 20th century. The author’s story be-

gins in New York City, as a young Jeremy David Sa-linger (played by Nicholas Hoult), home again after another in a series of ex-pulsions from expensive private schools, makes the rounds of the jazz clubs. Trying to find his pas-

sion in life, J.D. has fiddled about with any number of pursuits. One night, while trying to make time with any of the well-bred high society girls within range at one of his downtown hang-outs (no ingénues here though, these young ladies were competent players in their own right), J.D. sees the girl who will change his life – Oona (Zoey Deutch), the fetching daughter of the 1930’s top playwright, Eugene O’Neill.Young J.D. has always

fancied himself a racon-teur of top rung wit, and he’s committed some of his stories to paper, think-ing that his main talent might well be wordplay. He approaches Oona with

per and pen, freezing in a fox hole under threat of enemy fire, he would com-mit the stories to memory. For Salinger, Holden

Caulfield’s life kept him alive.The biography of J.D. Sa-

linger is the story of how Holden Caulfield came into being and how Catch-er in the Rye entered the human milieu as a pivotal turn in the direction of literary fiction – namely, sometimes there isn’t a happy ending. I came away from this

movie with a certain de-gree of disappointment, mostly because, as it seems was the case, J.D. Salinger did more to stifle his unique voice than did anyone else. If you see Rebel in the Rye, you’ll get my drift. J.D. Salinger, while pretty

interesting, is not an in-spirational figure. Rebel in the Rye is di-

rected by Danny Strong, and written by Strong and Salinger’s biographer, Kenneth Slawenski. Also starring Sarah Paulson as J.D.’s strangely too-under-standing literary agent.

Kevin Spacey as Whit Burnett and Nicholas Hoult as J.D. Salinger