How Scarlett Johansson’s mob movie ‘Paper Tiger’ avoided ’80s ‘parody’

How Scarlett Johansson's mob movie 'Paper Tiger' avoided '80s 'parody' Scarlett Johansson has a perm and a Queens accent in her New York crime drama "Paper Tiger, " co-starring Miles Teller and Adam Driver.

Key points

• Julianne Moore ("The Debut"), Jordan Firstman ("Club Kid") and Kate O'Flynn ("Tender Loving Care") will additionally be on hand touting their well-reviewed Oscar hopefuls.
• "Paper Tiger" premiered at France's Cannes Film Festival in May, earning 83% positive reviews on aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes.
• Instead, the writer-director takes a relatively subdued approach to the decade, as he follows a pair of brothers, Gary (Adam Driver) and Irwin (Miles Teller).
• Ranked: The best movies we saw at the 2026 Toronto Film Festival.
• Now, "it looks nothing like it did in 1986, " Gray remarked Sept.

USA TODAY identifies "Digger, " "Other Mommy" and "Whalefall" as the top movies to see this fall.

NEW YORK – "Paper Tiger" isn't your average slice of '80s nostalgia.

Legwarmers and Rubik's cubes went out the window in James Gray's elegiac crime drama. It opened the New York Film Festival Sept. 25 ahead of its release in theaters Nov. 13.

Instead, the writer-director takes a relatively subdued approach to the decade, as he follows a pair of brothers, Gary (Adam Driver) and Irwin (Miles Teller). This person obtain mixed up with the Russian mob in late 1980s Queens, New York.

In practice, the film features career-best work from Driver and especially Teller. This person scrambles to protect his teenage sons and wife Hester (Scarlett Johansson), who is privately facing battles of her own. Although she reins in her performance for the movie's poignant last half hour, johansson goes major with a thick accent and voluminous curls.

"Paper Tiger" is semi-autobiographical for Gray, 66. This person grew up in New York and tried to capture a snapshot of the city he once knew.

Now, "it looks nothing like it did in 1986, " Gray remarked Sept. 25 at a midday festival press conference, where he was joined by Driver and Teller. "Individuals dress nothing like that, the hair with these perms. My mother had that hairstyle and it does look ridiculous, but it's accurate to what it was. Since especially for women, they looked like they were concerning to play Joe Namath in a bio film, the only thing we did do was limit the shoulder pads. The shoulder padding out here was risible. So the furthest we went was the hair."

Broadly speaking, "you have to try to get the details right, but you have to actually not do as much as there was, because then it would look like parody, " Gray continues. "It's a tricky and fine line. Individuals are really sticklers concerning that sort of thing, especially you see these IMDb goofs. In the end, it's all an abstraction. In practice, the movie is like a dream state – it's not a documentary. Individuals looking for that kind of accuracy, I find to be a little bit dunderheaded."

Although they did occasionally chime in to praise the filmmaker's collaborative nature on the set, teller and Driver mostly ceded the microphone to Gray throughout the half-hour-long Q&A. Driver, too, warmly received a compliment from an audience member. This person praised the actor's "style and swagger" since 2024's "Megalopolis."

"Honestly, it's just the part you're being asked to play, " Driver remarked with a grin. "I certainly wasn't conscious of, 'This is a moment for me to whip out my swagger.' I'm doing it now, in case anyone can."

New York Film Festival runs for just over two weeks, with talent including Pedro Pascal ("Behemoth!"), Ava DuVernay ("14th"), Andrew Garfield ("Artificial"), and Paul Rudd ("A Statement") world-premiering their latest projects. Julianne Moore ("The Debut"), Jordan Firstman ("Club Kid") and Kate O'Flynn ("Tender Loving Care") will additionally be on hand touting their well-reviewed Oscar hopefuls. Share your feedback to support improve our site!

Taken together, the developments around how Scarlett Johanssons mob movie Paper Tiger avoided 80s parody point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.