‘Paper Tiger’ review: Adam Driver, Miles Teller, and Scarlett Johansson enter a heart-wrenching love triangle

Marriage Story stars Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson reunite in writer/director James Gray’s Paper Tiger. But don’t expect a desperate rehash of Noah Baumbach’s divorce drama.

For one thing, Gray is a filmmaker less drawn to such wall-punching theatrics, as evident through films like Two Lovers, Ad Astra, and Armageddon Time. For another, Driver and Johansson are not lovers in this film, though they are in a love triangle of sorts, with Miles Teller at the center.

Gray gives Driver, Johansson, and Teller some unexpected roles, allowing each a place to display their range. But make no mistake, this is Driver’s movie.

What’s Paper Tiger about?

Set in 1986 New York City, Paper Tiger unfurls the story of a Jewish family from Queens that gets on the wrong side of the Russian mob. In a cozy home in Elmhurst, Irwin Pearl (Teller) raises his two sons, Benjamin (Roman Engel) and Scott (Gavin Goudey), with his dedicated housewife Linda (Johansson).

Far from the cocky persona Teller forged through performances in The Spectacular Now, Whiplash, and the Divergent film series, the 39-year-old actor now oozes doofy dad energy. Teller’s signature smirk is swapped for an aw-shucks smile, and a patronizing eyebrow raise that insists, “Father knows best.” A pair of oversized eyeglasses completes the look; it’s is such an evocative detail of the era that the title card reading “1986” might be deemed egregious.

As Irwin, Teller is guileless, relishing every chance to play with his boys or annoy them with dad jokes. Still, he yearns for their respect, and wilts when his eldest huffs they only have “crappy” stuff because Irwin, an educated engineer, isn’t bringing home bank like their uncle, Gary (Driver).

A former NYPD officer turned security consultant with City Hall connections, Gary Pearl is flashy, rich, and successful in a way his younger brother can only envy. He wears tailored suits and a debonair smile. He drives a luxury car, and brings Peter Luger Steak House takeout to family dinner. So, when Gary promises Irwin a business opportunity to make $10,000, his brother is practically drooling at the possibility.

Gary wants to create a consulting firm with Irwin that would advise Russian immigrants who own property alongside the Gowanus Canal on how to meet the city’s building codes. The elder brother insists this legit business shouldn’t run them afoul of the Russian mob, but an overeager Irwin makes a misstep that puts all of the Pearls at risk.

How is Paper Tiger a love triangle tale?

At first, Irwin seems the protagonist of Paper Tiger, but Gray’s clever script steadily shifts focus to Gary and Linda. Once Irwin has earned the ire of the Russian mafia, it’s up to his brother and wife to fix it, because this family man with zero street smarts is incapable. And in this battle to protect Irwin (and the rest of his household), Gary and Linda become unexpected rivals, in part because they deal with Irwin the same way.

Paper Tiger becomes a story about the things we can’t say to the person we love. Whether because we don’t want to hurt them or we want to protect them, some truths are just too terrible to utter. For Gary, he tries to maintain a breezy exterior, promising Irwin he’ll work it out with the mob. But in the meantime, thugs creep into the Pearl home and intimidate them by taking Polaroids of the parents and boys, defenseless in their beds. It’s only when Irwin finds these pictures that he finally admits to Linda what’s going on.

She’s understandably furious, but she’s got a big secret of her own: a fatal diagnosis she can’t bring herself to share. With the mob threatening his life, Gary and Linda are in a similar situation: with an uncertain amount of time left to set Irwin up so he and the boys will be okay. But wife and brother are not allies, and so their paths lead in different directions, while Irwin spirals in impotent plans of his own.

The tragedy of the film is not so much what happens to Irwin’s family, but that — as smart as he is — he can’t see the troubles mounting before his very eyes.

Adam Driver is riveting in Paper Tiger.

Credit: NEON

Gray’s ensemble overall is strong. But Driver dominates the film, committing body and soul. The swagger he employs as Gary schmoozes cops and crooks alike is beguiling, recalling James Caan as Sonny Corleone in The Godfather. But in moments when that veneer cracks, Driver’s fear is so sparking the screen itself might catch fire. When he reprimands his onscreen brother with love and radiant frustration, he evokes Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone, specifically when he kisses the traitor Fredo. The masculinity and the heartache swell to a violent expression of love.

But Gary isn’t as direct as Michael, and so Irwin gets to remain smugly self-righteous, unable to recognize his brother’s sacrifices for him. Teller is smartly cast in this role. The bravado that carved his career at the start comes into play in the third act as a shield that Irwin carries to distance himself from his own failings. He is a beloved fool whose smile shocks the audience, because it displays his blissful ignorance.

Playing the desperate and dying housewife Linda, Johansson is urged by Gray to go into a space of melodrama the cool blonde has rarely tread. Big bouncy curls, thick eyeglasses, and a raspy Queens accent attempt to scrub the movie star glamour from Johansson’s appearance. But it is a futile effort. As weary and mumsy as the costuming of housecoats and made-up eye bags tries to make her, the role of Linda might have been better realized by an actress with a mug, not the face of numerous luxury beauty brands. That might have more firmly grounded the Pearl family’s blue-collar identity, and by extension, Linda’s grit-teeth determination to secure their future. Johansson tries, but her ache and ire ring hollow.

Driver’s performance recalls ’70s gangster cinema, where toxic masculinity roared with a debonair allure. Teller’s jolly blend of ego and ignorance makes his ’80s dad a believable buffoon. But Johansson’s (perhaps impossible to dim) glamour makes Linda feel like she’s from a ’50s melodrama, so beautiful and so sad! In this context, as grounded as she aims to make Linda, it still feels heightened, a performance of wifely limitations rather than a portrait of them.

Still, even with this tonal collision, Paper Tiger is a thoroughly engaging drama. Gray’s dialogue shrewdly builds not only characters, but the barriers of what they can and won’t share with each other. Like Conclave, Paper Tiger becomes as much about what’s talked around as what’s talked about. So, with each moment, in words spoken and unspoken, a labyrinth is built, daring the characters to escape it. And rather than calling us to relate to Irwin, the good guy and family man at the film’s center, Gray urges us to share in the frustration of those who love him until the bitter end.

In this way, Paper Tiger is a uniquely thrilling and purposefully infuriating family drama. Because as we watch a final moment unfold that is undeniably sweet and tender, we are haunted by what lies beneath it. Gray challenges us to take that trembling awareness home, and look to our own families, lives, and lies.

Paper Tiger was reviewed out of the New York Film Festival, where it was the Opening Night selection. The film will open in theaters on Nov. 13.