Armageddon Time: James Gray employs his usual soft touch to tell a coming-of-age story of a Jewish boy in the early 1980s. The young protagonist, however, is hard to sympathize with; he is loved but misunderstood by his family, and shoved in unwanted directions, but despite the careful advice received, he never shows the fortitude to justify all that. Acting is functional, as the key to the performances is generally subdued: Jeremy Strong is the performer that gets a wider range to play with, and he turns the brutish, looked-down-on father into an almost tragic character; Anne Hathaway is solid as the mother, and Anthony Hopkins is equally solid if unspectacular as the grandfather. Banks Repeta plays the young protagonist with some mischievous charm. The film has competent but unremarkable production and costume designs (by Happy Massee and Madeline Weeks, respectively), and cinematographer Darius Khondji captures it all with elegant camerawork.