My Salinger Year | Rotten Tomatoes

My Salinger Year

R

Released Mar 5, 2021

1 hr. 41 min.

Drama

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List

72%

86 Reviews

Tomatometer

62%

100+ Ratings

Audience Score

New York in the 90s: After leaving graduate school to pursue her dream of becoming a writer, Joanna (Margaret Qualley) gets hired as an assistant to Margaret (Sigourney Weaver), the stoic and old-fashioned literary agent of J. D. Salinger. Fluctuating between poverty and glamour, she spends her days in a plush, wood-panelled office -- where dictaphones and typewriters still reign and agents doze off after three-martini lunches -- and her nights in a sink-less Brooklyn apartment with her socialist boyfriend. Joanna's main task is processing Salinger's voluminous fan mail, but as she reads the heart-wrenching letters from around the world, she becomes reluctant to send the agency's impersonal standard letter and impulsively begins personalizing the responses. The results are both humorous and moving, as Joanna, while using the great writer's voice, begins to discover her own.

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Andrea F

Lovely film very nicely directed and acted - Margaret absolutly adorable

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/21/24

Full Review

peter S

Horrible. experiment in film making. A film with no point, no sense and no continuity. Margaret Qualley is the anorexic talking about everything except. Her appearance is skelettal. Her voice is cavernous. It's bad.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

01/08/24

Full Review

Ashley H

As a person who loves reading, this is like a film I would dream of myself inside. I mean, everybody would love to live in a cheap apartment in NY, have coffee and write for hours. Such a dream. And the film just makes the dream come to life. The characters talking to us, that was my favorite part. They're not talking, they're reading letters, reading their emotions, not just telling them, they actually sound like they are reading to us, which makes the film more beautiful. And the fact that this is based on a true story is just crazy, quiet amazing.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

11/01/23

Full Review

Stefan B

Interesting story exploring the life of a young woman who ended up forgoing a promising career as a literary agent to become a writer.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

10/09/23

Full Review

Alex C

Excelent movie, interesting, moving. Must see!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

07/10/22

Full Review

vander a

It's a very sweet character study movie. You should watch it when you're not looking for something heavy. All the actors are quite excellent. Someone compared it to The Devil Wears Prada and of course it's a similar situation but this isn't a comedy and doesn't try to be. It's actually more like The Devil Wears Prada - the book. I quite enjoyed it and agree more with the critics than the public in this review. That it got less appreciation by the public is surprising.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

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Philippe Falardeau

Director

Margaret Qualley

Joanna

Sigourney Weaver

Margaret

Douglas Booth

Don

Seána Kerslake

Jenny

Colm Feore

Daniel

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My Salinger Year: Trailer 1

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Mark Kermode

Kermode & Mayo's Film Review

You can't help comparing it to The Devil Wears Prada, which is sharper and funnier and more bitter...but it's the very definition of a film that goes down nicely, there are better things it can be but worse things too...

May 24, 2021

Full Review

Charlotte O'Sullivan

London Evening Standard

Sigourney Weaver and Margaret Qualley are two of the juiciest actresses in America and, thanks to them, this period drama is never less than tantalising.

Rated: 3/5

May 23, 2021

Full Review

Wendy Ide

Observer (UK)

Any film that can take an actor as sparky as Qualley and deliver a character with the personality of a damp dishcloth wrapped in a cardigan is seriously underusing its year in New York.

Rated: 2/5

May 23, 2021

Full Review

Rachael Mead

InDaily

Sigourney Weaver steals the limelight in this beautifully shot adaptation of Joanna Rakoff’s best-selling memoir.

Feb 17, 2023

Full Review

Keith Garlington

Keith & the Movies

“My Salinger Year” is a charming and earnest drama that tells its story with a warm sincerity but muted emotions.

Rated: 3/5

Aug 17, 2022

Full Review

Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

When grounded it has some amusing moments.

Rated: C+

Jan 12, 2022

Full Review

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Synopsis

New York in the 90s: After leaving graduate school to pursue her dream of becoming a writer, Joanna (Margaret Qualley) gets hired as an assistant to Margaret (Sigourney Weaver), the stoic and old-fashioned literary agent of J. D. Salinger. Fluctuating between poverty and glamour, she spends her days in a plush, wood-panelled office -- where dictaphones and typewriters still reign and agents doze off after three-martini lunches -- and her nights in a sink-less Brooklyn apartment with her socialist boyfriend. Joanna's main task is processing Salinger's voluminous fan mail, but as she reads the heart-wrenching letters from around the world, she becomes reluctant to send the agency's impersonal standard letter and impulsively begins personalizing the responses. The results are both humorous and moving, as Joanna, while using the great writer's voice, begins to discover her own.

Director: Philippe Falardeau
Executive Producer: Naima Abed, Hussain Amarshi, Philippe Falardeau, Emilie Georges
Screenwriter: Philippe Falardeau
Distributor: IFC Films
Production Co: Parallel Film Productions Ltd.
Rating: R (Some Sexual References|Language)
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Mar 5, 2021, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 5, 2021
Box Office (Gross USA): $54.0K

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