‘Jay Kelly’: Movies, Fathers and the Power of George Clooney

Throughout the past few years, many pop culture writers have lamented the death of the movie star — the perfect Hollywood idol with otherworldly physical beauty, effortless charm and most of all, an indescribable “it” factor.

For many, the first movie star to jump to mind is George Clooney.

In the dramedy “Jay Kelly,” Clooney (“Ocean’s Eleven,” “Michael Clayton”) reasserts his movie stardom, playing a thinly veiled self-insert named Jay Kelly, an aging movie star reckoning with the life he’s lived and the choices he’s made. 

Clooney isn’t the only movie star to fill the frame in the dramedy. Kelly is supported by his manager Ron Sukenick, played by Adam Sandler. 

The part of a lousy yes-man manager may not initially appear fit for Sandler, but it quickly becomes obvious that he’s a natural fit for the part due to his inherent relatability and comedic skill. 

Sandler (“Happy Gilmore,” “Uncut Gems”) previously worked with director Noah Baumbach on “The Meyerowitz Stories,” where he took on more of a serious every-man quality, which turns up again in “Jay Kelly” 

Both Sandler and Clooney’s personas are the focus of the film, begging the ancient questions of fame: Why are people naturally inclined towards these stars? Are stars made or born? Is the concept of stardom itself inherently harmful to the star?

The film itself is set over the course of a week in Kelly’s life as a movie star, but he — quite literally — takes side doors into the past watching his younger self interact with his father, daughters and other figures from his past. 

Baumbach is often lauded as the modern Woody Allen making exclusively New York City dramedies to start his career. The 56 year old’s chief interests have always been fatherhood and divorce, and his 2019 masterpiece “Marriage Story” seemed like his emotional cinematic catharsis. 

Following “Marriage Story,” Baumbach adapted Don DeLillo’s “White Noise” which, while a respectable attempt in making a larger, more spectacular style of film, ended up as a bizarre miss in Baumbach’s filmography. 

This career arc leads Baumbach to “Jay Kelly,” a film that gets at the essence of what he’s best at and most interested in while also feeling like a departure from all his other work. 

Like almost every Baumbach film, this is a movie with an absent father. Kelly’s a father who chose his career over his kids, and throughout the film he must continue to confront that reality, leading to an existential crisis that sets the narrative in motion. 

While Baumbach making another movie about a difficult father figure is no surprise, the form in which he tells the story is. Although the writer-director couldn’t quite work through the kinks of making a movie with scale in “White Noise,” Baumbach finally figured it out in “Jay Kelly.” 

Baumbach’s films are typically unremarkable in their visual language, but “Jay Kelly” is a departure. 

The film is shot by Linus Sandgren, best known as Damien Chazelle’s cinematographer, and the film shares much of the visual language of Chazelle’s films with long takes, a constantly moving camera and a golden, Hollywood sheer, prevalent in his films “Babylon” and “La La Land.”

Nicholas Brittel’s score is a huge achievement in the film. While adding emotion to the grand scene, it’s particularly effective in guiding the viewer through the more tender, quiet moments of the narrative. 

The other chief way “Jay Kelly” differs from the filmmaker’s past work is its script, which he co-wrote with Emily Mortimer. This is Baumbach’s first movie explicitly interested in movie stardom, and on that level, he succeeds in looking at fame in a nuanced, thoughtful way. 

The more unfortunate difference is the quality of the script itself. While the director’s scripts have always been air-tight, never wasting a moment, this script is not. There are numerous  ineffective subplots that detract from Baumbach’s  ideas. 

These subplots exist out of necessity. The exploration of Clooney’s public persona and Baumbach’s issues with his dad ultimately are not enough to form an entire narrative around. Audiences need more of a plot to latch onto, and these subplots are mostly unsuccessful. 

The one effective subplot involves Kelly meeting with an acting friend from his past, Timothy (Billy Crudup). Their compelling interaction is the closest to emotional honesty and vulnerability Kelly gets. 

“Jay Kelly” is a fascinating film, an audacious attempt at analyzing movie stardom, existentialism and fatherhood while occasionally crumbling under the weight of the film’s lofty ideas and ambitions. 

“Jay Kelly” is in select theaters now and streaming on Netflix Dec. 2.