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James Gray calls on Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson for his film Paper Tiger
Four years after his latest feature, Armageddon Time, New York–based director James Gray returns to the crime thriller genre. His upcoming film, Paper Tiger, stages a familial tragedy against the backdrop of a mafia scheme. Adam Driver leads the cast, alongside Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson.
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson to star in James Gray’s new feature
It has taken a decade of detours, from the wild Amazon of The Lost City of Z (2016) to the vastness of Ad Astra (2019) and the melancholic Queens in Armageddon Time (2022), for James Gray, 56, to return to what first made him known. Paper Tiger, the American director’s upcoming feature, looks like a return to his roots. Crime as a moral indicator, family as an emotional trap, and New York as the backdrop for dreams gone off the rails.
The pitch can be summed up in a single line. Two brothers pursue the American dream, but get entangled in a Russian mafia scheme. The danger then threatens their loved ones, testing their family bond as the unthinkable becomes possible. Hence, the expression “paper tiger”. A seemingly impressive power that proves fragile once confronted with reality…
James Gray gathers a prestigious cast, including Adam Driver (Marriage Story, House of Gucci), Miles Teller (Whiplash) and Scarlett Johansson. It marks a first for the filmmaker, who until now had tended to work with a close-knit circle of recurring collaborators, like Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Marion Cotillard, or Robert Duvall. One can also note that Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong, initially part of the cast, have ultimately left the project due to scheduling conflicts.
Family, an endless source of inspiration
James Gray‘s obsession with family is not new. “My classical education allowed me to discover Greek tragedy and its fascination with family relationships, which we also find in the Bible,” he told Numéro in 2019. “My taste had been shaped very early on by this belief that family life is an endless and unique source of drama that it will never go out of fashion.”
Caught between impossible loyalties and a love that imprisons its characters, the director almost always showcases sorrowful protagonists and mourning figures, who move reluctantly toward a tragedy of emotional debt. These themes occur in Little Odessa (1994), The Yards (2000), We Own the Night (2007) and even Two Lovers (2008).
Indeed, one can already recognize Little Odessa (1994) as the blueprint. This masterpiece, which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, starred Tim Roth as a prodigal son overtaken by familial violence in the Russian-Ukrainian neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Paper Tiger by James Gray does not have a release date yet.
