There is a feeling, a belief perhaps, that stories which are firmly based upon personal experience are more effective (better) than those which are wholly imaginary because the personal stories are founded in truth, in actual history.  Normally I subscribe to this feeling myself.  But sometimes, as in this case, the personal story being told is just weird, or out of tune with my own view of the world, or so singular that I just cannot relate to it.  Perhaps in this case the filmmaker told his story so close to the truth of his own past that he feels that it reveals things intimate and important about himself — but I have a different reaction to it.

James Gray’s film focuses on sixth-grader Paul Graff (Banks Repeta), who gets in trouble at his Queens, New York school circa 1980 and is enrolled at a private school instead.  His family life is rather turbulent and Paul feels disaffected.  He has two friends: Johnny Davis (Jaylin Webb), a black boy who is having an even rougher time than Paul is, and Paul’s grandfather (Anthony Hopkins), whose kindness and understanding are the only sentiments holding Paul at home.  When Paul gets into more trouble, events threaten to rip his family apart.

Evidently Paul’s troubled coming-of-age and poor decision-making were integral parts of James Gray’s past, and his filmic account of his own childhood, however fictionalized, is certainly heartfelt.  And evidently Mr. Gray has taken the approach that the story needs to be told, warts and all, to maintain the truth of the matter.  That is fine and admirable, but he has done so without really giving Paul a solid foundation.  Paul is dreamy, hoping to be an artist, cannot concentrate in school, is flippant with his parents and teachers and in general has a very bad attitude.  I hated the kid and kept wishing that he would suffer some actual punishment for his impertinence.  Sure, he’s awkward and insecure, but Paul continually gets himself into trouble with little regard for the consequences.  I kept hoping for tougher consequences.

It’s difficult to get into a story when one has so little regard for the main character.  Paul does rise to the occasion a couple of times late in the story when he has to, but for me it was far too little too late.  Too many times when a family dynamic goes sour the parents are blamed; this is one case where the kid is almost wholly responsible for putting everybody through hell.  And then there are the weird distractions — the obsession with Ronald Reagan and his own obsession with armageddon; the appearance of Donald Trump’s parents in a key but completely pointless sequence that is included because it actually occurred (yet has no relevance to anything at all that I can tell) — which I hope buttresses my argument against including “true” material that raises more questions than it answers.  Ultimately my own sour response to this personal drama rests almost solely with my dislike of its main character, who really did deserve a spanking or two or ten.  ☆ ☆.  12 January 2025.