P.S., J.D.

SALINGER (B+) - I was predisposed against this documentary. From all accounts, it smacked of crass exploitation.

But I liked it. Though deeply flawed structurally, it plays like a really good "American Masters" profile. (This will air on PBS in January. It's already streaming on Netflix.) It tells you a LOT about the larger-than-life author of "Catcher in the Rye," and it is exhaustively researched.

I cringed as I hit the "play" button, afraid that I was invading the privacy of the author who dropped out of our culture to live in seclusion in New Hampshire. But it wasn't like that at all. I think it would have been different were Salinger still alive; but with him gone, this is just another history project examining the life of a famous author. It's not overly intrusive; even though his love life is prominently featured, it is always respectfully handled. Granted, it doesn't show much appreciation for his writing. (I assume the filmmakers were not permitted to use excerpts from his work.) But neither is this the work of a hack.

The talking heads, including several biographers, help round out the stories. Even the celebrities (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Martin Sheen, Edward Norton) are thoughtful and even insightful, especially on the topic of celebrity. The highlight of the film is the interview sessions with Jean Miller, who met Salinger when she was 14 and he was about 30 on a beach in Daytona, Fla. (the same place he later broke up with Joyce Maynard, his teenage love from the 1970s). She speaks fondly and matter-of-factly about their courtship in a manner that suggests Salinger wasn't so much a creep as a clumsy, scarred lost soul. She seems to have known him well, and her appearance here comes off as respectful and meaningful.

The footage is impressive. We get silent film of Salinger cavorting in France with grateful Parisians during the liberation. Rejection letters from the New Yorker. A few rare snapshots of Salinger at home or around town, images that recur frequently but never get tiring.

What we could use a lot less of is the re-enactments, most of them with a Salinger lookalike slaving over a typewriter on a stage while giant images flash behind him.  It's interesting -- I watched this in three pieces: the first hour, then 40 minutes the next night, then the final 25 minutes the next morning. I loved the first hour, full of Salinger's war experiences. The next 40 minutes strained my patience, especially an extended re-enactment of the frustrated author vainly trying to pitch "Catcher in the Rye" to a publisher that decided it was "not for us." There's also cheesy stock footage aboard airplanes and of New York cocktail parties. Filmmaker Shane Salerno doesn't trust us to picture any of these things; he has to bombard us with literal images.

But then I loved the final 25 minutes, which introduces us to Maynard, the wunderkind writer who lived with Salinger and later famously wrote about it. Salerno does jam a lot in the homestretch. He overplays the role "Catcher" played in the shootings of John Lennon, President Reagan and actress Rebecca Schaeffer, but he doesn't dwell too long on the subject. It all builds to a satisfying conclusion, including the Big Reveal -- the report that Salinger has five projects set to be published later this decade.

Yes, Salinger was considered reclusive -- though many talking heads suggests that's the wrong word to use, because the author mixed freely with the town's residents, and he would call acquaintances regularly. He engaged in conversation with pilgrims who visited his property. (Plus, you know, he pretty much stalked young women through the postal service with his "I wrote Catcher in the Rye" line.)

More precisely, Salinger dropped out of popular culture and the publishing racket. He didn't want to be a celebrity. He lived his quiet life -- watching Liberace and Lawrence Welk on TV -- and chose not to participate in The Game. This examination of his life doesn't undo any of that; it merely satisfies our curiosity while ably chronicling those times.

The final shot of Salinger shows him grinning (finally), which makes you think that he might have enjoyed the whole game a bit and wasn't such a tortured soul that whole time. I'd like to think so.


Postscripts

• Our New York correspondent saw it first (naturally). She wrote:

I thought the doc had "first-time director fanboy" written all over it. {Don't actually know if it was his first film} Too many divergent styles and gimmicks - like a Chinese menu - a little from Column Ken Burns, a little from COPS, a little from Linklater's animated flicks. Ugh.

That said, I did learn a bunch of new stuff about the guy. Especially his pre-Catcher life. THAT I found worth the steep price of admission.

• And finally, here's a link to a powerfully written attack on the filmmakers who would dare to trample the legacy of the deified J.D. Salinger and the good name of the august New Yorker: "Who Was J.D. Salinger?"