‘Armageddon Time’ Cannes Review: Director James Gray Puts His Formative Years On Screen In Moving Coming-Of-Age Story
deadline.comWriter-director James Gray has been to the Cannes Film Festival in competition on four previous occasions with We Own the Night, The Yards, The Immigrant, and Two Lovers but has yet to walk away with a prize.
Maybe the fifth time will be the charm? It certainly would be deserving as Gray comes back to his beloved New York City roots with the highly autobiographical and intriguingly titled Armageddon Time.
Lest you think that with that title this is more akin to his last film, the Brad Pitt-starring sci-fi Ad Astra think again. It couldn’t be further apart and reps a return to his more frequent thoughtful character-driven family drama explorations rather than space, although that figures in at least one way.
With Astra and the exceptional and haunting jungle epic The Lost City of Z (my favorite of all his films and one of the best of any kind this century) Gray had drifted from the films that brought him to Cannes, but he is back in familiar territory and this is his most personal yet, a meticulously recreated cinematic journey set in the course of two months during the 1980 election season.The ever-imposing, even threatening presence of then-Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is weaved subtly in the background through snippets on TV as the family from Flushing, Queens, looks on with disapproval and fear for the future.
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