I texted a friend that I’d just seen a movie about how hard it is to be George Clooney and he immediately suggested we show Jay Kelly to every Palestinian. Perhaps there would be less sarcasm about world-famous middle-aged white male American millionaires in life crisis if there was any kind of perspective on display. Instead every single namedropped product is one which Mr. Clooney is handsomely paid to endorse in real life, and which also includes – at an Italian film festival not called The Venice Film Festival – a montage from Mr. Kelly’s screen career all made from guess whose. There’s even a scene where Mr. Clooney, I mean Jay Kelly, looks at his face in the mirror and compares himself to Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Clark Gable and Robert De Niro. The heart bleeds! But setting sarcasm aside with some difficulty, there are three reasons to watch “Jay Kelly:” two very good central performances, and the underlying question of why it was made.
The titular big huge star (Mr. Clooney) is about to start a new film when he learns the director who gave him his first break (Jim Broadbent) has died. At the funeral, which he attends with his manager Ron (Adam Sandler), he runs into a former friend from the very start of his career (Billy Crudup). A night’s reminiscing ends with Jay deciding to blow off the new movie to join his younger daughter Daisy (Grace Edwards) backpacking around Europe before she goes off to college. But while Daisy and her friends might be slumming it (albeit paying for everything with their mommies’ credit cards), Jay hires a private plane and brings along an entourage including Ron, his publicist (Laura Dern), his hairstylist (Emily Mortimer, who co-wrote the script with director Noah Baumbach), his personal assistant, his makeup artist, his driver and several others.
All the entitled Americans end up on a slow train to Italy, surrounded by not at all stereotyped Europeans (most notably Patsy Ferran, Jamie Demetriou and Sharon Rooney) who are so authentically themselves even around the world-famous movie star they keep their phones in their pockets. Jay himself is thrilled to be on public transport for the first time in decades Mr. Clooney somehow doesn’t make the close study of the little people patronising. Meanwhile Ron is busy fielding endless stressed-out phone calls from his frazzled wife Lois (Greta Gerwig) and the occasional one from his other major client, Ben (Patrick Wilson). To absolutely no one’s surprise the reunion with Daisy does not go as planned. The many flashback scenes showing Jay’s strained relationship with his older daughter Jessica (Riley Keough, superb as always) do not go much better, either. So what is a bird in a gilded cage to do, other than show up at that celebration of how great he is? And what are the many, many people who feather the gilded cage to do when they realise their bird might be flying away?
It is so nice to see Mr. Sandler act outside of his outraged comedy persona, as he so rarely does and is so extremely good at. He and Mr. Clooney are a surprisingly matched pair, and really seem like weatherbeaten colleagues of long standing. It is also so nice to see Mr. Clooney lean into being a big movie star, charming everyone silly while simultaneously showing the stress such a high-profile existence involves. The running gag that whenever Jay wails about being alone someone immediately puts a drink in his hands is very funny. A movie that opens with a quote by Sylvia Plath without containing a single suicide attempt is also refreshing to see. But none of those charms come close to answering the real question here: why was Jay Kelly made at all?
It would seem Mr. Baumbach has now made a trilogy of movies justifying his career choices to his children. There’s just no other reason for him to make yet another movie about why the sacrifices other people have made for a middle-aged white male American millionaire’s career are worth it. Jay Kelly’s pacing is a mess, the flashbacks go on too long and the endless speeches about European authenticity are patronising, but on the other hand it’s beautifully shot, funny without being hammy, handles the large ensemble cast without a hitch and includes a good fart joke. And yet. Why oh why did anyone think this is what the world is crying out for? Hollywood has got to rethink why it makes so much art about privileged people whining about those privileges. Jay Kelly is not bad, but my goodness it misses the mark.
One final thing: Ben’s wife, who has about a minute of screen time, is played by Isla Fisher. Isla Fisher! Someone give her a proper comedic leading role again immediately!
Jay Kelly recently premiered at the Venice International Film Festival.
Learn more about the film at the Venice site for the title.
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