Coming Through the Rye

Finding the reclusive author of “Catcher in the Rye” in 1969

In 1969 a persecuted prep school student in Pennsylvania (Alex Wolff) runs away to find the author of “Catcher in the Rye” in the hills of New Hampshire to get his permission to produce a play based on his classic novel. Stefania LaVie Owen is on hand as the girl from a nearby school whom he travels with while Chris Cooper plays the curmudgeonly recluse J.D. Salinger.

"Coming through the Rye" (2015) is a coming-of-age drama based on a true story. Being set in an all-male boarding school with sequences involving a female school, you can’t help but compare it with “Dead Poets Society” (1989). While it’s not great like that movie, it’s quite good. They’re really not that similar in the first place because “Coming through the Rye” is just as much of a road movie as it is a historical boarding school flick.

Wolff is good as the likable & sympathetic protagonist while Stefania is a winsome cutie. The story takes off when the two team-up in the second act. Their honest relationship is the core of the tale with the boy’s possible interactions with the author playing a secondary role.

Someone called the movie “phony” because Salinger’s classic book looked "down upon those who refuse to accept life as anything other than miserable and unforgiving. Its sincerity is guided by distrust in others and it spits in the face of affection and benevolence." Gee, ya think that might be why Salinger is depicted as an antisocial curmudgeon in the movie? Besides, it can’t be too phony if the events are based on a true story with 90% accuracy according to writer/director James Steven Sadwith.

The film runs 1 hour, 37 minutes and was shot in Orange County, Virginia. Speaking of which, the gorgeous Eastern locations are a huge plus.

GRADE: B