Neon released the first trailer for “Paper Tiger” this week, giving audiences their first extended look at James Gray’s latest return to his native New York, this time filtered through a 1980s crime story involving the Russian mafia.
Written and directed by Gray, the film stars Adam Driver as Gary Pearl, an ex-cop turned city fixer, and Miles Teller as his younger brother Irwin, an engineer trying to provide for his family. According to Deadline, the story follows the two brothers as they get pulled into a business scheme in Queens that ultimately draws the attention of the Russian mob, putting both their financial future and their family’s safety at risk. Gray has said the plot draws loosely on his own family’s real encounter with the Russian mafia in 1980s New York.
Scarlett Johansson plays Irwin’s wife, Hester, a role that was originally intended for Anne Hathaway before Johansson was cast, per TheWrap. Gavin Goudey and Roman Engel round out the family as the couple’s two sons.
The film had its world premiere in the main competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it was in contention for the Palme d’Or. TheWrap reports the screening drew a lengthy standing ovation from the Cannes audience. It’s Gray’s first film since 2022’s “Armageddon Time,” and continues a run of New York-centered storytelling that includes earlier films like “Little Odessa,” “The Yards” and “We Own the Night,” a stretch of his filmography that IndieWire’s review of the new trailer describes as some of Gray’s strongest directorial work in years, even ranking the new film among his very best.
Critical reaction out of Cannes has been largely positive, though not without reservations. The Film Stage cited its own Cannes review describing the film as a strong piece of filmmaking that still falls a notch below Gray’s most acclaimed crime dramas, “The Yards” and “We Own the Night,” even while praising how fully realized the film’s atmosphere is. Cinematographer Joaquín Baca-Asay, who also shot “Armageddon Time,” returns to collaborate with Gray again, bringing a visual style several reviews have noted feels increasingly rare in modern studio filmmaking.
The trailer itself leans into that tension between the brothers early on. Per WJJY, it opens with Irwin reaching out to Gary after a personal and financial problem spirals out of control, setting the brothers on a collision course that runs through the rest of the footage, with Hester increasingly worried her husband’s family won’t be able to protect either of them from what’s coming.
“Paper Tiger” is scheduled to open the New York Film Festival in late September before receiving a limited theatrical release from Neon on November 13, positioning it as one of the studio’s key awards-season titles for the fall.
