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There isnt much of a central story inArmageddon Time.
Grays portrait of his family is damning but human.
We see their racism, their classism, their self-absorption, but these people are not grotesques.
Ultimately,Armageddon Timebecomes a tale about the dissolution of Johnny from Pauls life.
In other words, even she sees herself as a victim.)
All of these seemingly disparate elements are connected.
The film is as much about class as it is about race.
In truth, Paul is oblivious, too.
Johnny has dreams of becoming an astronaut and collects NASA patches, which he shares with Paul.
What Gray does here is delicate and risky.
InArmageddon Time, we see Pauls life in exquisite detail but are provided almost no insight into Johnnys.
Gray is telling his story and has fully reimagined his and his familys world.
The movie formally erases the young man, the way he was erased out of Pauls life.
As a result, a pall of shame hangs over the entire film.
Gray instead charts the narrowest of middle grounds.
He situates his film in 1980 and allows its stories to play out with the sensibilities of its era.
In other words, he denies us the one thing these types of movies almost always provide: reassurance.
By refusing to let himself off the hook, he also refuses to let the audience off the hook.
