Watching the latest film from Noah Baumbach, which he wrote with the gifted actress Emily Mortimer, I couldn’t help but picture Marcello Mastroianni, taking stock of his life in Fellini’s 8 ½ and La Dolce Vita. Baumbach’s version of this overall idea is a bit long, somewhat messy—not unlike the main character—but it’s also exhilarating and, at times, brilliant. No one could pull this off except George Clooney, the quintessential Movie Star.
He puts no distance between him and Jay Kelly. Clooney isn’t winking at us at all; he surrenders completely to the character, surveying the circus that has become his life, and the people who populate it.
Chief among them is Adam Sandler, who is revelatory in a dramatic part as Jay Kelly’s manager. He immerses himself completely in the role. He’s a man who is pulled in opposite directions by his client, to whom he’s given so much of his life, and his family, who need him at this particular moment. (All the supporting characters live on their mobile phones.) It’s an honest performance about a man who loves what he does but also questions his own motives, and Sandler nails it.
Laura Dern is equally good as Kelly’s publicist, who is also devoted to her movie-star boss but feels the tug-of-war more acutely than Sandler, because he and she once flirted with having a romantic connection.
Jay has a tortured relationship with his two daughters. He has sacrificed his role as a father to his career. They know it and resent it, each in her own way, and don’t allow him to buy his way out of the problem now, as he is receiving a lifetime achievement award at a European film festival.
Jay Kelly may be flawed but it is compelling, and there it’s always a pleasure to watch George Clooney, especially in a part that suits him so well.
The film is now playing on Netflix.
