Directed By James Gray

Starring – Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Miles Teller

The Plot – Irwin (Teller), Linda (Johansson), and their two children lead a happy lower-middle-class life in Queens, if only they had a little more money. But then Irwin’s ever-impressive brother Gary (Driver), a former cop who still keeps a revolver tucked into his sock, comes along with a proposition that promises prosperity: teaming up with some Russian immigrants in the construction business. The work begins, and with it Irwin’s innocence shatters with deafening, fatal finality

Rated R for adult language and some violence.

(4) Paper Tiger – Official Trailer – In Theaters November – YouTube

POSITIVES

For all of the most prominent American filmmakers of this or any other generation, James Gray’s name tragically goes omitted from the most immediate answers of those inquired, as a result of the inconsistent results during the earlier part of his storied career, and while ‘Paper Tiger’ ultimately won’t win over those conflicted audiences unimpressed by his meditatively slow-burn approach to storytelling, for those along for the ride it offers a patient and subtextual pressure cooker on class anxiety and the illusion of the American dream, which Gray leverages to examine fragile family bonds and the insurmountable heftiness of devastating secrets at their most condemning circumstances. The means for these motivations are articulated brilliantly in the confines of Gray’s script, where rising market costs and budgetary constraints on the centralized family make this unforeseen opportunity feel like a guiding light into a better life away from increasing crime in their neighborhood, but it also blinds them to the glaring red flags that the audience recognize as quickly as we’re introduced to their Russian cohorts, where every interaction with them feels like an untimely intrusion instead of a warm and inviting environment, and while this would make the characters typically feel unrelatable in films of lesser quality, Gray instead finds empathetic angles in the ways he articulates the strength and resiliency of family togetherness during their most challenging of times, offering a glimmering semblance of hopeful outlook to the atmospheric range of a movie that isn’t afraid to make its audience uncomfortable at every turn, especially some masterfully executed sequences from Gray and his longtime cinematographer, Joaquin Baca-Asay, that revel in the vulnerability of everything that we can’t see, but understand is there regardless. One such sequence purely involves the meticulous use of shadows and some muffled sound design, which linger much longer than expected in the relaxed confines of the editing, in order to keep the audience on the edge of their seats in prolonging an attack that could come at any given moment. It implements a feeling in the pits of our stomachs that weaponizes the very homefield advantage against our protagonists that they depend so desperately towards, with the surmised damage revealed much later to have already been done, and with Baca-Asay focusing intently on the bodily motions of the characters, with their facial registries concealed by enveloping darkness, it leaves audiences clinging for any semblance of identifiable clarity to what’s transpiring in the darkness of a living room, leading to some grippingly intense pay-offs to the deliberateness of the storytelling that not only managed to maintain my vested interest for nearly two hours of a runtime, but also showed why Gray is among the best at connectively conveying the suspense of his characters to an interpretable audience, immersing them in the plight and increasing dread of stakes that makes any one of them, regardless of age, feel expendable at any given second to the narrative. When the film is at its most compelling, it sets off a chain reaction of events during the third act that certainly tests the allegiances of its characters, when it isn’t conveying the contextual meaning of its subliminal title, and while the manifested momentum isn’t completely paid off with an abrupt ending that, intentionally or not, leaves as many questions as answers, the journey to getting there is worth every step of the irreparable harm it supplants to our characters, made tragic by Gray grounding so many of the first act conversations with the charismatically charming personalities of his adorning ensemble, with the centralized trio of Adam Driver, Miles Teller, and Scarlett Johansson each giving some of their most emotionally demanding performances of their entire careers. This is especially the case for Driver, who commands with a prickly, complex, and authentically exuded portrayal of a conniving con-man forced to navigate impossible loyalty choices, where Adam effortlessly enacts the manipulative composure of his character’s increasing consequences to transparent levels that illustrate the restlessness from within. Miles Teller also continues his career renaissance from last year’s ‘Eternity’ by not only borrowing his thickly delivered accent from that film, but also delivering on an earnestly grounded, tragic, and deeply human portrayal beneath Irwin’s naivety and quiet pride, once again proving that Teller is a dramatic force to be reckoned with under the right guidance and opportunities of a screenplay. As for Scarlett, she’s unfortunately resided to a bit of a third wheel syndrome to Driver and Teller’s command over the proceedings, however her sensitive approach in Linda to the domesticated friction of her husband’s dangerous deeds, to her own heavy subplot involving a medical diagnosis, finds Johansson evoking a deeply moving and tremulously concealed approach that offers legitimate sensitivity to the underlining of hers and her family’s conflict, enabling a comfortably contested chemistry with Teller that transpires the lovingly affectionate family dynamic between them before tragedy threatened to tear them apart. Lastly, being that this is an aforementioned period piece, there’s an opportunity for the production to authentically recreate a gritty side to the world’s most dangerous city in 1986, without anything feeling overtly flashy or obvious to detract away from the family conflict at the forefront of the movie’s storytelling. Everything from Baca-Asay’s analog texture in 35mm cinematography, to the lived-in worn-and-weathered claustrophobic interiors of the set designs, to even the geographic accuracy of the depicted age, in all of its outer-borough townhouse architecture, flourishes crucial results towards crafting a visual tension that atmospherically mirrors the introspective emotional fatigue, financial strain, and lingering trauma of its characters, without any meandering soundtrack selections or outdated wardrobe stitches to egregiously emphasize what the audience already comprehends on their own abilities, materializing authenticity over anachronism, in order to breathe life into the kind of urban decay that subtly articulates the monotony of middle class Americana.

NEGATIVES

As highly compelling and entertaining as Gray’s script constantly elevated my engagement, there are some existential hinderances that eat away at the patience of its indulging audience, particularly one melodramatically superfluous subplot involving Linda’s health diagnosis, that takes ample time away from the development of the centralized conflict. To be fair, I think it’s fine that this subplot is included, as it not only utilizes Johansson’s talents beyond serving as a supportive link for Irwin, but also that it proves that life doesn’t stop for this family beyond this enveloping conflict with the Russian mob, it’s just that it’s during these shifts in the storytelling where the pacing eventually comes to catch up to the integrity of the storytelling, sacrificing a lot of its manifested momentum in the process, and considering it’s initially delivered in the confines of a dizzying sequence that feels a bit tone deaf compared to the rest of the film, stretching the naturality of its emotional impulses in ways that feel like the movie is reaching for an Oscar quite desperately, leaving me wishing that it was trimmed all together or at least injected with more impact towards the rest of the film surrounding it. In addition to Linda’s subplot, I also found the ending to land quite abruptly and unsatisfying in its resolution, with some egregiously overlooked conveniences that aren’t effectively dissected to resolve the lingering questions that persist within the restless minds of the audience. It’s one of those jarring title screens that makes the movie feel like it ran out of time or ideas, instead of implementing a profound slice of life for the audience to chewingly indulge, and while Gray’s untraditional impulses feel similar to the structure of a book, where the lives of the characters persist past the final cut of the movie’s fade to black, a futuristic flash forward would’ve worked better for the awkwardness of tip-toeing around the elephant in the room, especially considering its most gravitating of moments seem to transpire off-screen between some of its biggest characters.

OVERALL
‘Paper Tiger’ isn’t necessarily attempting to reinvent the wheel with the many crime dramas that came before it, but it does find scintillating staging and somberly stirring atmosphere to deliver a pointedly unflinching story about the devil in the details of the American dream, surmising a suspenseful slow-burn family tragedy that never loses sight of the many lives bound by loyalty. While the film occasionally struggles with a superfluous subplot that adds very little to James Gray’s bigger picture, or even an abrupt afterthought of an ending, it’s elevated by a seamless recreation of 1986 suburbia, as well as a trio of masterfully measured performances providing heartbreaking humanity and devastating poignancy to characters who dream with their eyes wide open.

My Grade: 7.9 or B+