Overview
- Paper Tiger, which premiered in competition at Cannes on Saturday, drew a standing ovation reported between six and ten minutes.
- Scarlett Johansson missed the screening due to another shoot, and James Gray tried a playful FaceTime during the applause that went unanswered.
- Early reviews are broadly positive, praising Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller along with Gray’s craftsmanship, while some critics flagged tonal shifts and plausibility gaps.
- The drama follows two brothers in 1980s Queens who see a fast business opportunity and stumble into dealings with Russian mob figures that threaten their family.
- NEON holds U.S. rights and plans a domestic release, and at the festival press conference Gray lauded moviegoers and criticized a money-first view of the American Dream, calling the current American president a symptom of that trend.