About
James Gray's crime thriller Paper Tiger just got added to Cannes last minute with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, and the festival director literally compared it to Gray's gritty 90s debut Little Odessa — which is a massive deal if you know his work. Meanwhile, there are only two American directors in the entire Palme d'Or competition this year because US studios have basically stopped making the kind of films Cannes wants, and Neon now has six films competing after winning the last six Palmes in a row. So Gray's showing up with what sounds like a scrappy indie about the American dream falling apart at the exact moment American cinema is barely present at the world's biggest film festival, which honestly could not be more on the nose.