Like Steven Spielberg does through The Fabelmans, Armageddon Time is a means for director James Gray to reckon with his childhood. Specifically it concentrates on the ways that familial and societal forces shaped his values growing up in an upper middle-class Jewish-American atmosphere in 1980s Queens. It is his realization of the injustices of the world, specifically racism, how he feels about that and what actions it leads him to take. The movie is set against the backdrop of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 Presidential campaign, just ahead of an era that would change U.S. politics forever. It’s an interesting time and an interesting perspective, told with a sense of nostalgia and a curiosity about probing one’s own understanding of the world.
It is these things, and it is highly flawed for them, Gray’s film exploring a meaningful personal epiphany, but one that can’t help feel limiting in the details of its’ approach; an approach that boils down to a white kid learning about racism through the lens of his black friend. There’s a long history of movies that deal with themes of racial prejudice by exploring the effect they have on white bystanders to black trauma, and while Armageddon Time makes certain strides of authenticity that those films don’t, it falls into a similar camp. And yet Gray is a smart filmmaker, who reveals a few nuances in and around this premise that make it if not consciously self-aware at least modestly fascinating.
The title is a paraphrase from a quote during Reagan’s campaign, referenced in the movie, about how that generation will be the one to see Armageddon. It’s not taken seriously in the house of young Paul Graf (Banks Repeta), Gray’s stand-in, where his family of well-off liberals scoffs at the notion of this terrible governor running the country. But meanwhile in his school life, Paul’s penchant for scribbling and being a class clown earns him the ire of his teacher but the friendship of a fellow troublemaker Johnny Davis (Jaylin Webb), the only black kid in the class who is singled out more frequently for punishment and humiliation. The early scenes in this grimy classroom and the behaviour of the two boys hearkens back to movies of rebellious youth like Lindsay Anderson’s If… or even The 400 Blows. A streak of anti-authoritarianism rings through both, a consequence of Johnny’s environment and the way he’s been treated, while for Paul it seems borne out of heritage and a frankness he is permitted with at home. He can be something of a brat around his family and worry for little repercussions.
Gray is keen to interrogate this privilege while also acknowledging a degree of otherness in this family that got to America by fleeing the Holocaust in the generation before grandfather Aaron (Anthony Hopkins), who has a particularly close relationship with Paul. But in the effort to find a level of solidarity that could exist there, the film at times hints at equating the persecution of one minority and another -which in this time and context is disingenuous. At best it is good intentions conveyed poorly; at worst it creates an impression of Gray grasping to justify his own voice and perspective here overshadowing that of the black youth. Armageddon Time is defined by white guilt, it has all the auspices of a filmmaker grappling with his privilege and complacency in regards to the mechanisms of systemic racism. And for this it does feel more thoughtful and honest than those weary movies about white people learning to just stop being racists, but it still frequently uses Johnny as a prop for Paul’s own character arc -most glaringly in the ending which is particularly unfair to Johnny at Paul’s expense. Ultimately it has nothing of value to say about the oppression that Johnny faces, except to acknowledge that it exists -which is treated as a kind of victory in and of itself for young Paul. He walks out of an assembly held by a bigot -that is his great stance.
Through the tepid neoliberalism of his themes, Gray does however manage to pinpoint curious insights in the behaviour of Paul’s family towards his education and his friendship with Johnny. There’s the casual racism of his grandmother, the perhaps unconscious racism of his mother (who is running for the school board) and father. And in particular there is one late-film speech by his father expressing sympathy but encouraging gratitude for his natural “step-up” in life. Only his grandfather has equivalent feelings about his duty to stand up for his friend against the powers and peers dehumanizing him. Anthony Hopkins is great as usual, although his virtues are perhaps a little too convenient, especially in light of his xenophobic wife. Far more compelling are the performances of Paul’s parents, his mother played by a grounded and sincere Anne Hathaway, his father by a disciplined though idiosyncratic Jeremy Strong. Both are unabashedly excellent in this movie, playing well that authenticity of attitude with which they are perceived by their son, and also displaying quirks so specifically derived presumably by Gray’s own parents. Strong especially turns out some captivating moments as he lashes out violently at his son in one scene, and is an understanding though dejected father in another. That aforementioned speech, for its’ precepts of virtuous whiteness, is one of the standout scenes in the movie. I would gladly take a film that focused more fully on these figures.
Paul and Johnny by contrast aren’t terribly interesting, mere vessels through which this world and Gray’s themes are presented. Yet that world they traverse is rich in character –Gray recalls 1980 New York with vivid detail, though little in the way of nostalgia. His area of Queens is often shabby and dismal, the school even more so, with only the Guggenheim and a visit to Central Park to illuminate some colour. This appears a reflective choice, of the political and economic situation in the city at that time, made more bluntly with the appearance at Paul’s second preparatory school by Fred Trump (John Diehl) and a commencement speech on the value of hard work and success by his daughter Maryanne (Jessica Chastain) –both of whom are openly supportive of Reagan. It’s here where I think Gray is onto something interesting as he highlights, with ripple effects into todays’ American political landscape, the allusions of American exceptionalism and the hard-work mantra being taught against the reality of systemic barriers that exist on different levels for both Paul and Johnny. And there is a direct contrast noted between the white privilege espoused by Trump and the elite student body and that of Paul’s humbler family. These adult observations and keen insight into the relevance of the moment are where the movie most intuits at some reasonable commentary.
Armageddon Time has these flashes of strong critique, intelligent observation and cogent theming, but its’ primary thesis is too often underwhelming and blind to a weakness of perspective it doesn’t seem concerned about. Paul’s arc is not particularly worthwhile and through it Gray says relatively little about the larger social issues that define his worldview, making it appear shallow for whatever reasonings may lie beneath. The friendship is all there is, and it is a sad one, but ultimately means little itself. I can’t see the movie escaping that. Not one of Gray’s best.
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