How ‘Armageddon Time’ Became a Ghost Story

In a film that happens almost exclusively from Paul’s point of view, Johnny’s home life is viewed only briefly, and when he stays in Paul’s backyard, Paul seems willfully unaware of the precarious position Johnny is in. In this scene, Gray says, “Johnny is sort of leaning into the light and leaning back away from it. That was the idea of it—that that identity for us becomes elusive.”

This scene between father and son happens after Paul has done something catastrophic, encouraging Johnny to help him steal computers from his fancy new private school, only for both of them to wind up at the police station. Paul is unwilling to let his friend take the fall, but his father arrives to rescue him anyway, leaving Johnny—whose only parental figure is an ailing grandmother—to fend for himself. 

In the car afterward, Strong’s Irving delivers a monologue that sums up the film’s complicated attitude toward the striving American dream. Only a few decades removed from the Holocaust, Irving is keenly aware of the discrimination faced by Jews, and feels compelled to take any advantage presented—even at the expense of other minorities, or a friend like Johnny. “It would be imbecilic of the film to try to say that the father’s speech is this lesson the kid learns and then he becomes a better kid,” Gray says. “No, what happens actually is the kid is introduced to an ever more complex, layered, and elusive world. The answer, if we can even call it that, is actually further away, not closer, the older you get.” 

As in so many other scenes in the film the actors are slipping in and out of the light, designed by Khondji to mimic the street lamps of the period. “It was all about the face-to-face,” Khondji says. “Both their faces are incredible.”