(AFP) – We have known him more ambitious, but never so intimate: James Gray, heir to Coppola and Hollywood classicism, delivers with “Armageddon Time”, in theaters on Wednesday, the almost autobiographical painting of a childhood in New York over the years ’80.
The film brings together an enticing cast, with Anne Hathaway (“The Devil Wears Prada”), Emmy winner Jeremy Strong for her role in the “Succession” series and award-winning Anthony Hopkins as pater familias. The lead role is played by a teenage actor, Banks Repeta.
Three years after his rise to the stars for “Ad Astra”, the author of “Little Odessa”, his first film, returns to his native New York for this new work, which brought him for the fifth time in competition at Cannes , but from which he left empty-handed.
While most critics have moved, Gray finds neither the obscurity of “The Night Belongs to Us” (2007), nor the ambition of “The Immigrant” (2013), with Marion Cotillard.
But, at the age of 53, he delivers his most autobiographical film: it tells the nascent vocation of a boy, Paul, who dreams of becoming an artist, in a family in the Flushing neighborhood, where he himself grew up.
All in a 100% “80s” atmosphere, with a vintage soundtrack, from the Clash (“Armagideon Time”, hence the title of the film) to the hip-hop of the Sugarhill Gang.
Enrolled in a public school, unlike his eldest son Ted, educated in a prestigious institution, Paul makes the 400 hits and befriends the class clown, Johnny (Jaylin Webb), a black boy with no family.
James Gray analyzes the rift lines in this Jewish New York family from the Ukrainian diaspora: jealousy between siblings, the father’s inferiority complex, a modest heating engineer, the impossible communication between a mother and her child. And above all the unique relationship between his grandfather (Anthony Hopkins) and his grandson, whose ultimate legacy will be to help him realize his calling, drawing.
Many echoes of the director’s career, who also attended public school in Queens before moving to the private sector, who grew up in a modest family of Jewish immigrants. The film was partly shot in his hometown neighborhood.
