It’s tricky trying to determine what story an artist has the right to tell. There aren’t really hard-and-fast rules (say, that only a person from a particular background can tell stories about others from that background). Sometimes it’s only clear in retrospect, once the results are on the screen.
Based on his own childhood, writer-director James Gray’s Armageddon Time centers on a multigenerational Jewish family in 1980s Queens. The central figure is Paul (Banks Repeta), a smart but rebellious 11-year-old who has little patience for school. At home, he exasperates his mother (Anne Hathaway), infuriates his father (Jeremy Strong), and only truly connects with his grandfather (Anthony Hopkins). During one bedtime chat, after sharing a story of his own mother’s escape from Europe, the grandfather tells Paul: “Remember your past.”
This is what Gray (Ad Astra, The Lost City of Z, The Immigrant) does with Armageddon Time, a clear-eyed coming-of-age drama that is surprisingly muted compared to the artistic flourishes—particularly in mise en scene and camerawork—of his previous films. Yet even as Gray is remembering a version of his own past, he’s also “remembering,” or at least imagining, someone else’s story too: Johnny (Jaylin Webb), the sole Black kid in Paul’s class. Though they come from different backgrounds (Johnny lives alone with his ailing grandmother and can’t afford the things Paul can), they bond over a shared disdain for their short-fused teacher and begin hanging out after school hours.
All of this, of course, should be fair game, especially if it’s drawn from Gray’s actual experience. But as Armageddon Time proceeded, I became increasingly uncomfortable with the way Johnny’s story only served to stoke Paul’s (and the movie’s) moral consciousness—to be ground zero for the film’s white guilt. Yes, in some ways Johnny is a supporting character much like any other, serving a particular purpose in the narrative. But the racial realities add a significant wrinkle. Though well played by Webb, who deftly vacillates between the irrepressible enthusiasm of youth and the anger of someone realizing that the world is stacked against them, Johnny ultimately becomes something of a magical, sacrificial Negro—to reference two tropes that have persisted across cinema history.
There is an aesthetic element to Armageddon Time that only added to this discomfort. Despite the presence of legendary cinematographer Darius Khondji, who also shot The Lost City of Z and The Immigrant, the movie fails to capture the textures of Webb’s skin in certain scenes, often relegating his face to the shadows. It’s at once a small thing and a momentous one—a suggestion that Johnny’s story isn’t one that Gray, however well-intentioned, should have told.
(11/2/2022)
