Paper Tiger
Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson lead James Gray’s Cannes-competing crime drama about a pair of go-getters who become embroiled with the Russian mafia.
In 1986 New York, devil-may-care former cop Gary Pearl (Adam Driver, Paterson, MIFF 2016) pitches a lucrative construction project to his engineer brother Irwin (Miles Teller, Whiplash). The catch? The job is full of legal loopholes and encroaches on Russian-gang territory. Knowing his wife Hester (Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story) wants an easier life, Irwin comes aboard – and the siblings quickly make bank. But when Irwin accidentally spies something he shouldn’t have, the mob starts threatening Hester, their two sons and everything the Pearls hold dear.
Six-time Cannes Competition contender James Gray (The Lost City of Z, MIFF 2017) returns with another sagacious critique of the American Dream, this time leveraging personal experience to dramatise how unchecked aspiration can push well-meaning people onto questionable paths. While its escalating tension and depiction of the underworld’s suffocating clutches make it a taut thriller, Paper Tiger also unfolds as a sensitive study of how family can be both our greatest asset and our Achilles heel. The film’s male stars deliver career-best performances – Driver embodying Gary’s specious bravado; and Teller, Irwin’s sometimes-too-pliant earnestness – portraying two brothers whose ambition puts their bond to the test.
“Masterfully stays focused on its central family … so old-school in its gritty tone, sure-handed camerawork, and timeless visuals that it might be a new American classic.” – ELLE
Tickets
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