Paper Tiger: Driver, Johansson and Teller Lead a 1980s NYC Drama
Paper Tiger: Driver, Johansson and Teller Lead a 1980s NYC Drama
A star-studded 1980s New York tale about loyalty and betrayal as a family gets drawn into shady deals with the Russian mob.
Paper Tiger plunges us into a muscular, heartfelt and somber 1980s New York, where James Gray again resurrects the spirit of Elia Kazan in a blue-collar tragedy about fraternal loyalty and betrayal. It’s a story about men who fear weakness and the ache of failing to protect their families, told in Gray’s signature palette of muted ochres, reds and browns that feel like late-afternoon light lingering on a tough city.
At the center are three performers who anchor the film: Miles Teller as Irwin Pearl, a Queens-based engineer who has built solid work and hopes to fund his sons’ college futures; Scarlett Johansson as Hester, Irwin’s wife, who communicates authority with a direct, formidable presence; and Adam Driver as Gary, Irwin’s roguish uncle and a recently divorced ex-cop who’s quietly plotting to leverage his inside access to City Hall for a lucrative hustle. Gary arrives one night with a money-making proposition that seems almost too neat to be real.
The scheme hinges on a group of Russian businessmen who have won the rights to a long-stalled cleanup effort for decades of oil sludge in the foul-smelling Gowanus canal in Brooklyn. They need a qualified engineer to prepare a full report—a document that will bolster the Russians’ standing with city authorities. There’s a $10,000 fee for delivering this document, and what starts as a small, clever setup spirals into something heavier and more dangerous, pulling Irwin, Hester and their family into a web of loyalties, money and fear.
Gray’s film leans into its own civic anxieties—the weight of bureaucratic power, the cultural texture of a tight-knit urban community, and the code-like behavior of the NYPD—blending tradition with the murkier gray areas of ambition. The director’s approach is quiet, but the performances are anything but; Driver, Johansson and Teller bring a gravity to their roles that makes the family supper scenes feel like charged chambers where love, pride and survival collide. The movie’s mood is contemplative and intimate, with a sense that even the strongest bonds can buckle under pressure when the promise of quick money comes knocking. Paper Tiger has already turned heads on the festival circuit, earning a notable Cannes reception that underscores its status as a serious, heavyweight drama about power, loyalty and the costs of staying afloat in a city that never stops testing its residents.
