Phonies! Movies Inspired by J.D. Salinger
Tadpole, 2002
One gets the sense that director Gary Winick would love to have helmed the movie version of The Catcher in the Rye if J.D. Salinger hadn’t banned it from ever reaching theaters. But where Salinger casts a skeptical eye on the lives of preppy, upper-class Manhattanites, Winick’s film about a 15-year-old student on break from his fancy boarding school looks at the same milieu through an adoring lens (helped in part by the use of early digital cameras, which make every shot seem like looking through soft gauze). Oscar Grubman (Aaron Stanford) is basically a more affected Holden Caulfied — he quotes Voltaire constantly, and in French, no less. Like Holden, he roams New York City, entering bars and falling in love with sophisticated older women like the privileged child he is. All shades of Catcher, except for the not-going-crazy-at-the-end thing.