Alice Tully Hall abuzz. Thousands attend the opening night film in several Lincoln Center venues. The film PAPER TIGER is James Gray’s take on the story of two brothers from Queens in the ‘80’s who get involved with the Russian mob. Of course, that story can’t end well. But the film does. As does the night with an impending Nor’easter threatening the city and the partying mood at Tavern on the Green. 

In a Q&A with Dennis Lim, James Gray talked about elements taken from childhood in the boroughs. That ethos permeates: the cars, the kitchen décor, the Queens house, a single-family house with bedrooms upstairs. The Pearl brothers, Gary (Adam Driver) and Irwin (Miles Teller) sport the slick or hairy male hairdos of the times, and Hester’s (Scarlett Johansson), blond curls must be set at night. When asked how she prepared for the role of Hester, she replied, “I was thinking about that generation of women, how they were taught to be second to their husbands.” Hester has a distinct story line of her own, one that is open at the end. Gray said he likes to think the movie keeps evolving.

The guys skipped the after party, but everyone else crowded into Tavern on the Green for a seafood extravaganza. Piles of lobster, crab salad, oysters. The biggest night for film on the East Coast was less about the glamor and more about movie talk.

By the time Mike Leigh’s movie premiered several days later, the Nor’easter had devolved into a pissing rain. TENDER LOVING CARE is about aging, but not in a conventional way. It’s more about how people care for one another, in families, and professionally; Amy (Kate O’Flynn) and Rosie (Alice Bailey Johnson) work in this thankless job even when we know how essential this work is for society. We glimpse them as they are essentially told to fuck off by the curmudgeonly folk who could use the care most. We glimpse them as they endure life’s challenges, guzzling wine as their romantic lives fizzle. 

The cast and crew who accompanied Leigh laughed to say they never know the film’s title. Leigh seemed to have settled on this one, and indicated this might be his last. By the time we got to Brasserie Boulud for a swank after party, Leigh was deep in talk with Wallace Shawn. Marion Bailey, who has been in eight of Mike Leigh’s films summed up the importance of being in this festival in New York in this moment. “I suddenly had a sense of awe as I realized that Alice Tully Hall would be the largest screen with the biggest audience where I would ever see our little film.”