"Armageddon Time" -- Movie Review

 

For the 60^th Anniversary of The New York Film Festival, there was a special screening of the new semi-autobiographical drama by James Gray, “Armageddon Time”, featuring Anne Hathaway and Anthony Hopkins. 

Synopsis

Will a boy be able to overcome societal and family issues to achieve his lifetime dreams?

Story

At the age of 11, Paul Graff (Banks Repeta) began 6^th grade at a public school in Queens, New York in the year 1980.  Not particularly interested in the education they offered him, Paul’s goal in life was to become a comic book artist.  Similarly apathetic about academics is his classmate, Johnny (Jaylin Webb), who is a year older than Paul because he’s had to repeat the 6^th grade.  Although Paul is Jewish and Johnny is African American, their mutual disdain for schooling renders them kindred spirits and they soon become the very best of friends.  Sadly, it is this friendship that ultimately leads to the two boys being separated.

When the two boys are caught sharing a marijuana joint at school, Johnny is punished and Paul’s parents (Jeremy Strong and Anne Hathaway) transfer him to the same private school that his older brother attends.  Although Paul is having difficulty making friends at his new school, he can always rely on one member of his family to be both his friend and confidant – his grandfather, Aaron Rabinowitz (Anthony Hopkins).  Together, they bond through sharing secrets and embarking on their own adventures to the exclusion of others.  They are virtually inseparable until the point when circumstances dictate otherwise.      

Despite attending different schools, Paul and Johnny somehow manage to maintain contact, although not without great difficulty and inconvenience; both unhappy at home and in school, they concoct a scheme to run away.  The plan is to flee to Florida, where Johnny’s older brother lives.  Once free of both their academic and familial obligations, they fantasize that they will be able to live the life they want and deserve.  Before they can actually get out of town, their little scheme is abruptly scotched and once again, both Paul and Johnny find themselves in serious trouble.  Will this event change the course of their life forever?

Review

The track record of James Gray combined with a great cast is enough to garner interest in seeing “Armageddon Time” – unfortunately, it doesn’t quite deliver the impact that one might have expected.  For one thing, the ending is somewhat up in the air; it seems that the main point of the story is essentially summed up in a conversation between Paul and his father in the family car.  Additionally, Gray appears dead-set on offending as many people as possible who subscribe to a politically conservative philosophy – specifically, he takes shots at the late former President Ronald Reagan as well as the entire Trump clan. 

By setting this story in the 1980’s, Gray is apparently expressing his discontent with the current state of society and suggesting that we got on the road to where we are some forty years ago or so.  While there may be a point in showing that many of the class and race issues from then persist today, it seems somewhat unfair and simplistic to pin it all on one group and that another was not in any way complicit.  Were some seeds planted in our society back then?  Absolutely.  The focus seems to be only on what has not changed instead of acknowledging what has changed – including and especially things that have changed for the better, in some cases. 

Post-screening, there was a conversation with writer/director James Gray and some of the cast members (Jeremy Strong, Anne Hathaway, Banks Repet, and Jaylin Webb).  Gray said that he wrote the screenplay for “Armageddon Time” from September to November of 2019 – point being that not only was it pre-Covid, but also, prior to the events of January 6, 2021 and also before the George Floyd case.  His inspiration for writing this screenplay came when he took his children to visit the house where he grew up in Queens; he was saddened to find that there were precious few memories to be found of the major incidents in his life.  By making this film, he sought a way to preserve them.