Paper Tiger

The American director James Gray needs no kings to tell tragedies of operatic scale. Two brothers, a kitchen in Queens and the empty shell of the American dream are enough for him. It all begins in New York. It is 1986, Reagan’s hollowing-out of the welfare state is slowly starting to bear fruit, and even Irwin Pearl can feel it. The engineer and father of two counts every dollar twice. His wife Hester dreams of an easier life. Then Gary appears, Irwin’s older brother: ex-cop, charming, swaggering, with a Mercedes and a business that is supposed to make them both rich. But behind the redevelopment project stands the Russian mafia. And suddenly the hope of rising in the world turns into a story of absolute ruin.

With “Paper Tiger”, James Gray returns to the streets of his childhood. His images glow in autumn colours. And what begins as a gangster thriller becomes an American Oresteia, a ghost film in which it is not the dead who haunt, but the promises of a society that gave up on its people long ago. Gary wants to help his brother, Irwin to protect his family. But every attempt to hold on to happiness drives them deeper into perdition. An overwhelming swan song for the American dream, as only one of Hollywood’s last great classicists can tell it. Magnificent!