“Let there be wealth without tears; enough for the wise man who will ask no further.” It’s fitting that the Aeschylus quote on the opening of James Gray’s riveting Paper Tiger evokes Greek tragedy. In this piercing account of the American Dream in tatters, the magnitude of that dimension feels appropriate, echoing the currents of betrayal, fear and death that course through the film like rivulets of blood. Calling it a sequel would be reductive, but the haunting drama is a companion piece to Gray’s 2022 film, Armageddon Time, again rooted in the director’s childhood. But it’s closer both thematically and tonally to his brooding 1994 debut feature, Little Odessa.
That lends Gray’s ninth and arguably best film a gratifying full-circle symmetry. The director has often mined personal and family history for dramatic inspiration — the Vanessa Redgrave character dying of a brain tumor in Little Odessa, just as Gray’s mother did; the passage of his émigré grandparents through Ellis Island, which informed key parts of The Immigrant; his own bittersweet coming of age, when his eyes were opened to prejudice and inequality in Armageddon Time.
Paper Tiger
The Bottom Line
A drama of almost overwhelming power.
