‘My Salinger Year’: See Margaret Qualley, Sigourney Weaver in Trailer

Margaret Qualley and Sigourney Weaver star in the new trailer for My Salinger Year, out March 5th.

Based on the 2014 memoir of the same name, Qualley stars as Joanna Rakoff, who leaves graduate school and moves to New York City to become a writer. She gets hired as an assistant at a literary agency, where she reports to Margaret, played by Weaver. (Weaver’s character is a demanding boss, but not nearly as terrible as her character in 1988’s Working Girl.)

It’s the Nineties, but the office is old-fashioned — decorated with wood-paneled walls and typewriters on the desks. The agency represents J.D. Salinger, and Joanna is tasked with writing standard responses to his many letters of fan mail. She begins to write more personal responses and discovers her own literary voice, encouraging her to pursue her dreams as a writer. “I didn’t want to be ordinary,” she says. “I want to be extraordinary.” My Salinger Year will arrive in theaters and on demand this spring. The film was written and directed by Philippe Falardeau.

Qualley appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as the Manson Family member Pussycat. That same year, she starred as Anne Reinking in Fosse/Verdon.