It sounds very dismissive to call something pure, indulgent fluff. Yet, there are a few films that make this exact lightness their great power, and it’s into this category that Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly falls. It’s a millionaire’s midlife crisis dramedy in which George Clooney essentially plays George Clooney in a celebration of George Clooney, which could have so easily fallen into irritation and self-satisfaction. Yet, with wit, glamour, and a shimmering star performance at its heart – the best Clooney has been since The Descendants at least – Jay Kelly is instead a magnificent tribute to one of the most quintessential *stars* of movie history.
As Clooney’s avatar, Jay Kelly is one of the last of the old guard of true Hollywood royalty, an ageing and fading but still wildly famous actor with expensive brand deals and a love for espresso. After the quadruple emotional punch of finishing a shoot, his first movie director dying, his younger daughter leaving to travel for her first summer as an adult, and getting punched in the face by an old friend who believes Jay stole his career in their youths, a nervous breakdown ensues. Suddenly, Jay has dropped out of his next movie at legally actionably short notice and decided to follow his daughter to Europe, where a Tuscan film festival is planning to honour him with a career award.
Caught in Jay’s wake is his long-time (and long-suffering) manager Ron (Adam Sandler), whose own family life always ends up as Jay’s collateral damage whenever Ron has to jet off after him at short notice. Alongside the rest of Jay’s entourage – including exhausted publicist Liz (Laura Dern) and in-demand hairstylist Candy (Emily Mortimer, who also co-writes) – the pair float into Italy for a trip that will serve as a profound pivot point for the both of them.
Clooney is fantastic here as a man who, with no real problems, has in fact been undone by having too much control over his own life. His money and fame have bought him an existence where everyone around exists at his whims, and now he realises that he might not have a single real connection in his life. It’s a 1% of the 1% problem, but Clooney and Baumbach make it genuinely moving regardless, with Sandler providing gently excellent support. His slow turn from dying for Jay’s approval and attention to becoming his own man with his own life is wonderfully done, Sandler showing us a quasi-grieving process for a very strange feeling – the realisation that a ‘friend’ of yours is, and always has been, merely a work acquaintance.
It’s another sparkling script from Baumbach, funny and self-aware without sacrificing any earnestness. Some of the minor characters Jay meets on his travels are *too* cartoonishly broad, but the general slightly manic tone feels very fitting when seeing the world through the eyes of a man who is worshipped in every room he steps into. And we really do get a deep dive behind those eyes, Jay wandering into his own memories (there’s some really lovely set design facilitating seamless transitions from present to past), watching the turning points of his youth with a piercing combination of nostalgia and regret.
As any film set in Tuscany should, Jay Kelly also looks lovely, Linus Sandgren turning in his typically luscious, luxurious work with golden villas, pink sunsets, and, of course, constant perfect framings of his leading man. He and Baumbach know that a tribute to Clooney needs to be truly *cinematic* within its ultimately rather small story, and they succeed, navigating busy sets and empty European roads in sweeping oners to add a sense of grandeur to proceedings, aided by a lovely score from Nicholas Britell.
With an ending deeply reminiscent of David Lowery’s Robert Redford tribute The Old Man and the Gun from a few years back, Jay Kelly lands its final blow with warmth and force. Yes, this is a film about the sacrifices made in service of career. Yes, it’s about how the rich and famous might well be a different species from the little people and the impossibility of bridging that gap. But, ultimately, the final message here is; ‘isn’t it fantastic that George Clooney exists and became a movie star?’ And you know what? It really, really is.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 