Queens, New York 1980. Paul Graff (Banks Repeta) has just started sixth grade and befriends Johnny Davis (Jaylin Webb), the only black kid in his class. As they find themselves regularly getting into trouble Paul discovers that life is not a level playing field. 

Armageddon Time is a semi autobiographical film for writer/director James Gray that focuses heavily on the special connection that Paul has with his grandfather, his exposure to racism both to his own minority group of Jews and to that of black people and the unrelenting feeling that the safe bubble a parent keeps their child in is being burst. 

The plot feels more like a collection of events that pull the rug out from under Paul rather than a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. It is about the destabilisation of the world he grew up in as a child and the real world he is entering as someone on the cusp of being a teenager. 

Whilst Paul is middle class he is also a Jew. As he begins to learn about the persecution of Jewish people and the casual antisemitism they face from stories his family tell around the dinner table he begins to relate that to the way that his friend Johnny is treated by some of the other kids at school. One of the most powerful scenes in the entire movie is when he talks to his grandfather (Anthony Hopkins) about these moments and his reaction to them. In fact Hopkins is one of the best things in the movie. An understanding grandpa who is trying to prepare his grandson for the trials of life. 

We also see Paul get a reality check in regard to the careers, hopes and dreams of his parents played by Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong. They tell him to have a fall back in regard to his dream of being an artist, whilst his father tells him about how his mothers family rejected him because his father was a plumber. 

The whole film is also set to the backdrop of Ronald Reagan’s presidential run which gives the film its title and sets the tone for the level of tension and concern of the time. 

Overall it is a really dreary, but honest assessment of the troubles of a young boy growing up. The complete opposite feeling I got from Paul Thomas Anderson’s semi autobiographical effort earlier this year, Licorice Pizza. 

I have recently been a huge fan of Gray with The Lost City of Z and Ad Astra but would definitely say this is a harder, less engaging watch.