Paper Tiger (2026, James Gray, US)
“Tonight was a bad night. Tomorrow will be better.” Bold words by a tepid Irwin (played by Miles Teller) to his two teenage boys after they've been threatened and assaulted by the Russian mob. There’s not a hint of glibness here as in ‘get over it’. This is a man who believes in his job, in the bonds of family, in right. What other option does he have? It is the sort of belief that gives us just enough audacity to ask for more. By ask I mean request. By more I mean, just something to tide us over and a little extra for some sweets for after. Not a penny more.
There’s a formal cleanliness and precision to Gray’s work. Feels like a movie that’s been cut out from another — perhaps a clunkier epic — and it’s all the better for it.
This isn’t Gray mocking the American dream, but more of a requiem for the fools who come up against it. Gray paints a portrait of a gutless, spineless upper middle class man whose only sin is to pretend that he does not, only to be buttressed and insulated by those who are willing to get their hands dirty. In this light, Irwin’s parting line to his kids — something to the tune of, ‘everything I do, I do for you’ — plays like a joke muttered by a man so oblivious to the conceit.
Miles Teller’s best role in forever. Driver ever competent. Still in awe of the deft cinematography (Baca-Asay) of that final chase sequence. But Scarlett Johansen steals, as the woman of the house, her foremost duty: maintaining that veneer of domestic docility. Oh the familial-infrastructure required to help boys feel like they're men.