Movie Review
★★
COMING THROUGH THE RYE
Written and directed by Jim Sadwith. Starring Alex Wolff, Stefania Owen, and Chris Cooper.
At Coolidge Corner. 97 minutes. Unrated (fumbling, dispiriting sexual situations; pallid adolescent angst).
Ironically, the phoniness that iconic teen romantic Holden Caulfield despised pervades Jim Sadwith’s “Coming through the Rye,’’ a semi-autobiographical tale of hero worship and literary integrity. That is until J.D. Salinger himself, portrayed by a commanding Chris Cooper, shows up near the end of the movie and establishes authenticity.
In a superficially rendered 1969, 16-year-old Jamie Schwartz (Alex Wolff, who sometimes looks like a young Bob Dylan, and other times like McLovin, in “Superbad’’) has suffered through three years at Crampton Academy. The institution is less like Wes Anderson’s Rushmore and more like the hazing-crazy prep school in the recent release “Goat.’’ Nerdy by nature and with aspirations to genius, Jamie offers an irresistible target to jocks and other bullies. At first the film affects a whimsical, self-deprecating attitude to this mistreatment, and Jamie directly addresses the camera with would-be Woody Allen-like asides. But the tone shifts not so much dramatically as chaotically, falling into self-pitying darkness as the harassment intensifies.
Jamie copes with this familiar adolescent tragedy with two obsessions. He develops a crush on a local high school girl brought in to perform female roles in the Crampton drama society’s productions (she plays Juliet; Jamie plays . . . Mercutio). And he idolizes J.D. Salinger. He regards “The Catcher in the Rye’’ as a sacred text, and imagines himself as Holden Caulfield. He sports Holden’s signature red hunting hat. No wonder the other kids hate him.
Unfazed, Jamie combines his two loves by adapting the book into a play, which will costar himself and the girl with whom he is besotted.
There are obstacles. One is the fact that the girl has no interest in him. Another is trying to get permission to stage the work from Salinger himself, the notoriously difficult recluse whose whereabouts no one knows or is willing to reveal.
The resolution to these problems, as is evident as soon as she appears on screen, is Deedee (Stefania Owen). She’s the plainer, smarter, more self-deprecating local girl who befriends Jamie, smiling knowingly because she recognizes his lovelorn delusions. Until he recognizes that she’s the one he really wants, she’s willing to enable his hapless quest to track down the writer. Not only does she upstage the other girl, but Jamie also. Aside from Salinger, she is by far the most interesting character.
Be that as it may, she drives Jamie to New Hampshire, where their quest is frustrated by Salinger’s world-weary intransigence. “He is not Holden Caulfield,’’ Salinger tells Deedee when she makes the case for her friend. Indeed he is not. He barely exists as Jamie Schwartz.
★★ COMING THROUGH THE RYE
Written and directed by Jim Sadwith. Starring Alex Wolff, Stefania Owen, and Chris Cooper. At Coolidge Corner. 97 minutes. Unrated (fumbling, dispiriting sexual situations; pallid adolescent angst).
Peter Keough can be reached at petervkeough@gmail.com.
