Paper Tiger Trailer: Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, and Miles Teller Are a Trio to Watch

The first trailer for James Gray's Paper Tiger has arrived, bringing Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, and Miles Teller together in a tense story about family, ambition, and the dangerous pursuit of the American Dream. Having seen the film at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, I can say this immediately: I loved it. The success of Paper Tiger largely hinges on the performances of its three leads.

Set in 1986 New York, the film centers on brothers Irwin and Gary Pearl, played by Teller and Driver. Irwin is an engineer trying to provide a comfortable middle-class life for his family. Gary, a former police officer, presents his brother with what appears to be an opportunity to make serious money.

It isn't. The brothers become entangled in a scheme involving the Russian mafia, and what begins as an opportunity quickly threatens everything Irwin has worked to build.

Johansson plays Hester, Irwin's wife, who is dealing with struggles of her own as the family's world begins to unravel. The newly released trailer sells Paper Tiger as a crime thriller, and certainly, that's part of the film. But having seen it, I think there's much more happening underneath. James Gray is interested in family.

He's interested in the choices people make when money, loyalty, and survival collide. And he's particularly interested in what happens when the promise of the American Dream starts looking more like a trap.

That's where Driver, Johansson, and Teller become vital. I loved all three performances.

Teller gives Irwin an emotional vulnerability that makes the consequences of his decisions increasingly painful to watch. Driver brings unpredictability to Gary, a man whose confidence and ambitions have ramifications far beyond himself. And Johansson imparts Hester her own emotional weight rather than allowing the character to exist simply as the wife caught between two brothers.

Together, the three create a family dynamic that gives the crime story its stakes. Driver and Johansson are also reunited on screen after Marriage Story, but Paper Tiger puts them in an entirely different world. Rather than revisiting that earlier dynamic, Gray uses this ensemble to explore loyalty, desperation, and the ways families can fracture under pressure.

The setting matters, too. This is James Gray returning to the New York territory that has defined so much of his filmmaking. Queens, Brooklyn, working-class families, immigrant communities, and complicated relationships with ambition are all part of the film's DNA.

Paper Tiger premiered in competition at Cannes, where I first saw it. Now the film is heading home to New York as the opening night selection of the 64th New York Film Festival on September 25.

With the trailer finally out, audiences are getting their first real taste of a film I've been waiting to talk about since Cannes.

Yes, there's crime. Yes, there's danger. But Paper Tiger works because the consequences feel personal.

And with Driver, Johansson, and Teller all delivering performances I loved, Paper Tiger is one film I'm genuinely interested to see enter the wider conversation this fall.

Paper Tiger begins its theatrical release through NEON on November 13 before expanding nationwide on November 20.