With this muscular, heartfelt and sombre new picture set in 1980s New York, James Gray again resurrects the spirit of Elia Kazan in a blue-collar tragedy of fraternal loyalty and betrayal; a movie about men and their horror of appearing weak and failing to protect their families. Paper Tiger has that distinctive Gray colour palette: a perpetual late-afternoon autumn of subdued ochres, reds and browns. And there are his keynote family supper scenes, the characteristic presence of the Russian community in New York, and the potent, tribal codes of the NYPD: part mob, part trade union, part masonic clan whose membership responsibilities and perks go on well after retirement.
Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller give weighted, intelligent performances at the film’s centre: all three characters, in their different ways, have Springsteenian hungry hearts. Teller is Irwin Pearl, a modest, working-class guy who is a qualified engineer in Queens, doing well at his trade but still concerned about paying for his teen sons’ – Scott (Gavin Goudey) and Benjamin (Roman Engel) – college education. He’s married to Hester, played with forthright authority by Johansson, sporting frizzy hair and glasses that make her look like one of the Golden Girls.
