America Comes of Age in James Gray’s Triumph

James Gray is a fascinating director with a range wider than the Amazon River but a consistent aesthetic which makes each film feel truly his. Whether it’s historical adventure epics (The Lost City of Z), introspective sci-fi quests (Ad Astra), tense crime dramas (We Own the Night, The Yards), or quiet character studies (The Immigrant), Gray usually finds a way to incorporate his very personal themes of family, ancestry, politics, and morality.

Now he’s made his most personal film yet, the semi-autobiographical Armageddon Time, which is loosely based on his own youth in New York as a child of Ukrainian-Jewish descent. Gray employs his typical subtlety in exploring complicated moral and political themes without getting didactic or expositional, using the election of Ronald Reagan and a private school funded by the Trump family as the backdrop to a quiet character study. With a phenomenal cast, brilliant directing, and a perfect ending, Armageddon Time captures a very specific moment not just in a boy’s coming of age, but in American history. It’s one of the year’s best films.

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A Great Cast Supports a Boy’s Coming of Age in Armageddon Time

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Armageddon Time chronicles an important shift in the life and mind of Paul Graff (played by Banks Repeta), a boy who is not just a quasi-avatar for Gray but for many young people who benefit from privileges they’re not aware of. Paul is a bit of a brat, the kind of boy who will leave the table and order Chinese food when he doesn’t like his mother’s cooking. He can misbehave and be a bit obnoxious, but there’s no malice to him; he’s just a kid enjoying the many things that were given to him through the suffering, toil, and risk of his elders (played by an incredible cast).

Anne Hathaway plays his put-upon mother Esther and is wonderful at balancing exasperation and annoyance with deep love. Jeremy Strong is amazing as Paul’s father Irving, a stern man who nonetheless has a good sense of humor and an abundance of love, but refuses to be walked over like his wife.

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The only person who really gets through to Paul and has the power to sway his mind and influence him is his grandfather and Esther’s father, Aaron Rabinowitz, played by Anthony Hopkins in one of his great late performances. A magisterial man who is simultaneously funny and sad, Aaron is the kind of person who will suffer silently for decades without an ounce of resentment if it brought joy to his loved ones.

That type of suffering is apparent throughout much of Paul’s family — these are people who struggled, surviving pogroms and World War II, bigotry and hatred, poverty and ostracization in order to give subsequent generations a better life. Paul, like so many people, is mostly ignorant of this, and enjoys his life as if it was simply natural, rather than the hard-won result of his ancestors’ lengthy trials and tribulations. When Paul develops a friendship with a Black boy at his school, he gradually comes to realize how the world works, how it treats other people, and how lucky he is, even if it’s all so confusing and sad.

Class, Privilege, and Politics in Armageddon Time

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Armageddon Time is magical in the way that it feels like nothing is really happening, and yet emotional and political threads are being sewn without much conscious awareness. Paul’s friendship with Johnny (played by Jaylin Webb) is threatened when their fun times and truancy leads to the fury of Paul’s parents. Using his grandfather to convince him, they send Paul to the private prep school his brother attends. There, he sees the real world of privilege, where the children chant Reagan’s name and attend speeches given by Fred and Maryanne Trump (yes, those Trumps; Fred served on the board of directors for the Kew-Forest School). These kids will likely never come of age.

Related: Best James Gray Movies, Ranked

Paul will, though. That’s because true coming of age requires some melancholic mix of tragedy, suffering, and regret, things that are generally hidden away from rich kids and the world’s elites. Without ever becoming miserable, and always retaining a sense of joy and fortitude, much of Armageddon Time is about becoming aware of suffering, inequality, power structures, and genuine warts-and-all tragedy. By putting Paul’s transition toward maturity in the spotlight, Gray effectively shines a light on America’s transition toward something else.

Though it’s set four decades ago, Armageddon Time is hauntingly timely, not simply because of its use of the Trump family, but by showing the seeds of how we got to where we are today. Tacitly using Reagan, policing, income inequality, immigration, and racism in tangential yet important ways, Gray depicts how America came of age in a very different way from Paul.

Armageddon Time is Musically and Visually Beautiful

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Cinematographer Darius Khondji paints a complete world in Armageddon Time; whether he’s filming claustrophobic house scenes or sprawling exterior montages, the film just feels visually whole. Everything connects, the same way Khondi has been able to create a distinct palette for a variety of very different films (Se7en, The Ninth Gate, Panic Room, Funny Games, Uncut Gems, Woody Allen and Jean-Pierre Jeunet movies, and so on). He applies his genius to Armageddon Time without ever being flashy, instead balancing the warmth of Paul’s home life with the coldness of the world with seamless grace.

Related: Unconventional Coming-of-Age Films Worth Watching

The film itself is named after a song, originally from Willie Williams but later covered by the political punk band The Clash, titled Armagideon Time. These are some of the lyrics:

A lot of people runnin’ and a hiding tonight

A lot of people won’t get no justice tonight

Remember to kick it over

No one will guide you

Armagideon time

The film uses this great needle drop and music in general very well, with Christopher Spelman’s delicate score complementing the use of dub-style reggae and rock. The music mirrors Paul’s introduction to empathy as he observes the way his Black friend is treated differently by everybody (teachers, police, the wealthy) despite displaying the same behavior as Paul. His eyes open to the actual world around him, and he grows as a human being as a result.

The Personal is Political in James Gray’s Coming of Age Movie

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Armageddon Time is masterful at showing just how precarious this growth and humanity is. It’s only because of his friend Johnny, his own caring family, and especially his kind but morally strong grandfather, that Paul is able to escape from the narcissism and amorality of privilege. Many other kids in his position didn’t and won’t get that chance, because they’re surrounded by elitist, racist, uncaring, and/or selfish family and friends. That’s who tends to rule the world.

Gray’s film is a portrait of Paul’s escape from that world, and a call for others to run from the immoral, hateful, greedy sectors of a society that favors economics and social position over humanity itself. Armageddon Time beautifully conveys the personal and political power of walking away from the institutions that privilege some and expel others and prioritizes family and real human connection over success, proper behavior, and obedience. It ultimately carries one of the strongest political messages there is — opt-out.

Produced by RT Features, MadRiver Pictures, Keep Your Head, and Spacemaker Productions, Armageddon Time will be released in theaters from Focus Features on Oct. 28th.

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