As it has been outlined on this website before on films like Get On Up, biographical films have their formulas and rules. In addressing the origins and rise to fame of reclusive author J.D. Salinger, Rebel in the Rye faces the familiar dramatization tightrope walk between sugarcoated hero worship and biting character study. The creative choices made by Danny Strong, in his debut directorial effort, swirl between an engaging warm hug and an indifferent cold shoulder.
Read MoreWars transform the soldiers that participate in them. Men and women in combat can be broken down, built up, or both in positive and negative ways. Because the young tend to serve, their stories, and the films that tell them, can mirror a late-term version of the “coming-of-age” archetype. The fingerprints of forced maturity appear all over the likes of “The Deer Hunter,” “Platoon,” “Jarhead,” and dozens of other films. In all honesty, the trope is overused and over-familiar and that’s the first mistake of “Sand Castle.”
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