‘Armageddon Time’ Review: Hard Lessons About Life in America - The New York Times

Can you retrieve the archetypal time of sixth grade? Would you adjacent privation to? James Gray, successful the opening country of “Armageddon Time,” his tender and lacerating caller film, brings it each backmost with clammy precision.

We are astatine Public School 173 successful Queens, New York, astatine our desks successful Mr. Turkeltaub’s class. It’s 1980 — possibly you’re aged capable to retrieve that, excessively — and 2 boys are astir to get successful trouble, 1 for mouthing disconnected during rotation telephone and the different for drafting a representation of the teacher (Andrew Polk) with the assemblage of a turkey. It seems similar if your sanction was Turkeltaub and you taught sixth people you mightiness beryllium capable to instrumentality the joke, but connected the different hand, possibly not being capable to instrumentality the gag is the full crushed you’re teaching sixth people successful the archetypal place. This is simply a man, aft all, whose occupation requires him to utter the words “gym is simply a privilege, people” with a consecutive face.

“Armageddon Time” isn’t astir Mr. Turkeltaub, though his contempt for his students helps to propel its plot. It’s not astir gym people either, but it is — astutely, uncomfortably and successful the extremity tragically — astir privilege.

Johnny collects NASA ngo patches and dreams of becoming an astronaut. Paul thinks the Beatles volition get backmost unneurotic soon. He besides tells Johnny — matter-of-factly alternatively than boastfully — that his household is “super rich.” This isn’t rather true. Paul’s father, Irving (Jeremy Strong), is simply a boiler repairman. His mother, Esther (Anne Hathaway), is simply a home-economics teacher and P.T.A. serviceman who is considering a tally for the section schoolhouse board. With assistance from Esther’s parents (Anthony Hopkins and Tovah Feldshuh), they are sending Paul’s older brother, Ted (Ryan Sell), to backstage school, wherever Paul volition yet articulation him.

In a reasonably abbreviated clip — betwixt the commencement of schoolhouse and Thanksgiving, with the predetermination of Ronald Reagan successful betwixt — Paul volition get astatine a clearer, harsher knowing of however power, presumption and wealth enactment successful America, a acquisition that volition travel astatine Johnny’s expense.

Johnny is Black, Paul is white, and adjacent arsenic they navigate the satellite together, they acquisition it successful antithetic ways. Mr. Turkeltaub whitethorn punish them both, but helium is overmuch harder connected Johnny, calling him an “animal” and ridiculing him successful beforehand of his peers. Johnny, who lives with his grandmother, is 1 of a tiny fig of Black students astatine the school, and their beingness alarms immoderate of the ostensibly tolerant adults successful Paul’s family.

Interracial relationship is an aged and analyzable taxable successful American culture. Think of Ishmael and Queequeg bedded down astatine the Spouter-Inn successful “Moby-Dick,” Huck and Jim adrift connected the Mississippi successful “Huckleberry Finn” oregon Dylan and Mingus tagging up Brooklyn successful Jonathan Lethem’s “The Fortress of Solitude.” In astir each case, the achromatic character’s cognition is cardinal (these books are each first-person narratives, and successful a palpable if not literal sense, “Armageddon Time” is too). The Black character, nevertheless brave, beauteous oregon tragic helium whitethorn be, is the conveyance of his companion’s motivation awakening.

“Armageddon Time” plants itself successful this tradition, but it is besides honorable astir the limitations of its ain perspective. Gray tells the communicative of Paul’s find of the iniquities of contention and class, but doesn’t unreal that this achy cognition mightiness redeem him, overmuch little rescue Johnny.

Nor does the cruelty of American racism travel arsenic quality — surely not to Johnny, and not successful the Graff household either. They are Jews whose ascent into the American mediate people is shadowed by generational memories of Cossacks and Nazis successful the aged satellite and little lethal brushes with antisemitism successful their caller home.

The motivation halfway of the clan is Esther’s father, Aaron, who has a peculiar fondness for Paul. He’s a gentle, playful, didactic beingness successful the boy’s beingness — Hopkins finds the indispensable grit hiding underneath the twinkle — dispensing gifts and jokes and hard nuggets of wisdom. He’s a comforting beingness for Paul, who is terrified of Irving’s convulsive temper and astatine an awkward signifier successful his narration with Esther.

Gray’s filmography — helium has directed and written 8 features truthful far, starting with “Little Odessa” successful 1995 — tin beryllium understood arsenic a bid of inquiries into the meaning of home, which is usually determination successful the outer boroughs of New York. After venturing further afield successful his past 2 movies (the Amazon successful “The Lost City of Z” and outer abstraction successful “Ad Astra”), helium has swerved into profoundly idiosyncratic territory.

But adjacent arsenic Paul Graff is an unmistakable change ego, his concern is simply a mentation of the predicament faced by the young men played by Joaquin Phoenix successful “We Own the Night” and “Two Lovers.” His curiosity whitethorn propulsion him toward rebellion, escapade and the investigating of taboos, but astatine the aforesaid clip helium is entangled successful the warm, sticky tendrils of household work and tribal identity.

Gray surveys the Graff household with an oculus that is some affectionate and critical. (The oculus of the manager of photography, Darius Khondji, finds the precise colors of coziness and claustrophobia, and the subtle shades of nostalgia and remorse.) A antithetic filmmaker mightiness person made Esther, Irving and Aaron avatars of wide hypocrisy. They despise Reagan and basal for the underdogs. They besides nonstop Ted and Paul to a schoolhouse whose large benefactors see the Trump family, and driblet toxic morsels of bigotry into their array talk.

But “Armageddon Time” is little funny successful cataloging their motivation failings than successful investigating the contradictions they inhabit, the swirl of mixed messages and ethical compromises that specify Paul’s emerging consciousness of the satellite and his spot successful it. He hears a batch — including from 1 of the Trumps — astir hard enactment and independence, and besides astir the value of connections. He is told that the crippled is rigged against him, and besides that it’s rigged successful his favor. He’s instructed to acceptable successful and to combat back, to travel his dreams and to beryllium realistic.

And Johnny? The messages helium receives are overmuch much brutal, though hardly little confusing. But what happens to him tin lone beryllium guessed, by Paul and the audience, due to the fact that 1 of the lessons Paul learns is that his friend’s communicative was ne'er his to tell.

Armageddon Time
Rated R. Bad feelings, atrocious behavior, atrocious language. Running time: 1 hr 55 minutes. In theaters.