No One Will Guide You, Armageddon Time
I was very excited to get this off the watchlist, but WOW okay a lot to say. Chronologically:
This is ‘cast-baiting’ at its finest, touted as Anthony Hopkins/Anne Hathaway as co-leads with Jeremy Strong supporting, they end up sharing a combined 50% (or even less) of screen time. Not annoyed, since Banks Repeta ends up putting in such a raw, but weightlifting lead performance that all but screams, “you will remember my name.”
The film itself is very well done; fine performances, fine technicals, I can even overlook the weird pacing in the script but I can’t get pass the ‘vilification’ of the token black character! You have ONE non-white person in your cast and you proceed to portray ALL of the harmful stereotypes of black kids unto them??? Unintelligent, troubled home, no parents, does drugs, streetwise and familiar with pawnshops (this one does my head in because I have never met a single person that off the top of their head knew a pawnshop owner LOL), and above all else, he’s still made to be the one that takes the fall for the “promising young white man” three times over! Paul literally never says a word to authority for Johnny, not even once, but Johnny sticks up for him to teachers, subway bullies, police, etc.
I understand the overwhelming need of a filmmaker to relay an autobiography/love letter — especially when their daddy Spielberg might be bagging a couple oscars for his — and even more the desire for accurate retelling, but there’s a rather not-so-fine line between recounting lived experiences and flat out false memories. And whilst I can’t say for a fact that James Gray was a rebellious kid who wanted to be a painter and skipped class but liked Chinese cuisine and was a Muhammad Ali fan and didn’t say the N-word and just happened to smoke weed with the only black kid in his public school, it’s highly improbable that his only friend while living in the extremely closed off Jewish community barely 30 years post Auschwitz, was black.
You end up juxtaposing antisemitism with racism and this does no good for either community. It’s not rewarding culturally, barely does its intended job as a film, and disappointingly ends up being nostalgia porn for New Yorkers who lived through Reagan’s presidency.
