Overblown style of Salinger detracts from fascinating story of famed misanthrope.

Timing is almost as important as content on those rare occasions when popular culture rises to world-changing effect. In 1951, J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye became a phenomenon for a world that didn’t know it was ready for something new. The book questioned post-war conformity, reveled in subjective experience and captured the ways and language of young people just before the first explosion of youth culture in America. The Catcher in the Rye has sold 65 million copies as subsequent generations discovered it and claimed it as their own. It still sells a quarter of a million copies every year. And it has acquired a mystique thanks to Salinger, who published only three more books before leaving New York City, exiling himself to New Hampshire and refusing to publish anything more – even though he reportedly continued to write daily for almost 50 years before his death in 2010.

Times are different today. Pop culture seems to have little potential to change the world; often we get cultural ephemera like writer/director Shane Salerno’s documentary Salinger and its 698-page companion book. Previously known mainly for writing action movies like Armageddon, Salerno worked on Salinger for nine years, all while convincing the press he had penetrated the author’s inner circle to acquire startling revelations and therefore needed to shroud the project in total secrecy to preserve its impact. Salinger has its share of news about the author’s life and character – some of it credible, some not – but it’s all delivered in a sensationalistic style that Salinger would have found distasteful.

Early on, Salinger presents interviews with people including actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and author Tom Wolfe to attest to its subject’s artistic significance. Because there’s so little visual material available that relates to Salinger, the film employs endless re-enactments that eventually dissolve into unintentional self-parody. Important subjects like Salinger’s traumatic and formative experiences in World War II combat are handled reasonably well, but Salinger throws that all away with a collage of young people from all over the world joyfully holding up their tattered copies ofThe Catcher in the Rye.

There’s a primary “secret” revealed at the end of Salinger that reviewers have been asked not to divulge. Of course, this information has been widely reported over the last week or two, first by The New York Times. But buying a movie ticket to get your news hardly sounds like a good idea.

SALINGER (2½) Directed by Shane Salerno • Featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Edward Norton and Tom Wolfe • Rated PG-13 • 120 mins. • At Osio Cinemas