‘Armageddon Time’ reckons with a pre-Reagan childhood | movie review

Armageddon Time isn’t the first drama in recent memory where a filmmaker reckoned with a formative time in their childhood. But many don’t feel as immediately relevant — perhaps a little too on the nose — as James Gray’s exploration of his “liberal” family’s navigation of a pre-Reagan America in New York City. While presenting itself as a fun childhood romp through the dawn of the 1980s, it quickly turns into a biting indictment of privilege, generational racism, and the white-washing of the American dream.