Armageddon Time

ARMAGEDDON TIME   ***1/2

James Gray

2022

IDEA:  In 1980 New York, preteen Paul befriends a black student to the dismay of his family and the school administration.

BLURB:  An autofictional childhood memoir almost entirely shorn of nostalgia, Armageddon Time is shot through with the world-weary perspective of its now adult subject, who replaces halcyon reveries with a clear-eyed look at the structural forces, both subtle and overt, that shape a young person’s life before they’re aware of it. Around the youthful innocence of Paul - played by Banks Repeta in a performance of tremulous, piercing authenticity - Gray renders a climate of stifling cultural conservatism and racial and class inequality. The Reagan era hasn’t begun quite yet, but its dehumanizing politics hang palpably in the atmosphere like a shroud waiting to swallow up Paul, and those far less fortunate than him. The budding artist is pressured on nearly all sides to conform to a standard vision of white middle-class complacency that entails disavowing his creative aspirations as well as his friendship with a black student. Although it serves as a safety net, his privilege also becomes a kind of spiritual cage that bounds him as he gravitates outside its mores, beyond the prescriptions of school and family. Gray’s emphasis on Paul’s Jewish heritage is particularly pointed; a monologue delivered by his immigrant grandfather (a stellar Anthony Hopkins) succinctly conveys volumes about the inherited generational trauma and attitudes toward success that reverberate throughout the household. The plangency of Armageddon Time echoes in Darius Khondji’s autumnal lensing, casting a persistent half-light on the faces and worn textures of the film’s grasping, gasping American Dream. While Gray allows no easy escapes from the seemingly intractable systems that govern our lives, he does provide a certain reassurance that Paul will come away from his trials not defeated, but armed with the conscience and compassion to be better than he’s asked to be.