There are two types of great actors in the movies. The first are those, such as Daniel Day-Lewis or Tilda Swinton, who disappear into their roles, effectively becoming a new person each time they appear on screen. Then there are the capital-M Movie Stars, whose outsized charisma prevents you from forgetting you’re watching a world-famous actor, but are so magnetic that it’s difficult to care. No actor better represents this latter category than George Clooney, a fact that “Jay Kelly,” the new film from director Noah Baumbach, leans into. Clooney plays Kelly, a thespian of Clooney-esque fame and charisma – “the last of the classic movie stars,” as described by his long-suffering agent Ron (Adam Sandler in dramatic mode). Jay Kelly has it all, but finds himself thrust into a midlife crisis by a series of traumatic events: the death of a director and longtime mentor (Jim Broadbent), a tense reunion with a college roommate (Billy Crudup) and the imminent departure of his youngest daughter Daisy (Grace Edwards from “Asteroid City”) for college. Impulsively, Jay drops out of his upcoming project, accepts a ritzy tribute in Tuscany he previously declined and embarks on a voyage across Europe to not-so-surreptitiously tail Daisy on her backpacking trip, his entire, increasingly harried entourage in tow.
In both tone and form, “Jay Kelly” deliberately evokes Fellini’s “8½” as Kelly alternately fumbles through his creative crossroads and flashes back to key moments in his life. The difference is that where Marcello Mastroianni in that film played a stand-in for his director, George Clooney plays a stand-in for George Clooney. Kelly’s life is not Clooney’s, but Clooney’s aura is transposed onto his onscreen avatar. When a train full of starstruck vacationers fawn over Jay as he slums across Europe in coach, we understand, because we can imagine how they would respond to the actor in real life. Clooney plays Kelly with his typical raffish charm, but with an earned, lived-in streak of melancholy. Jay Kelly claims not to be a method actor, but it seems safe to say that Clooney brings his share of past experience to this role.
What sets “Kelly” apart from similar meditations on midlife angst (including Baumbach’s “Marriage Story”) is an amiable gentleness that buoys its characters through their long vacation of the soul. Kelly, as we learn via flashback, is far from a perfect friend, father or husband (we never meet any of his wives, but we know that there have been a few), but he ultimately remains a kind man, trying to do good even when his attempts are clearly shortsighted. Likewise, Ron and the rest of his entourage truly care about him, doing their best to invisibly protect their client (and his reputation) from himself. Even when these characters are at their wits’ end with each other, we can sense the love between them, which in turn warms the rest of the film.
It would not be wrong to describe “Jay Kelly” as The George Clooney Show, but Baumbach has surrounded his star with a truly formidable ensemble. Sandler is the standout, taking a break from his threadbare Netflix comedies for perhaps the saddest role of his career, a neurotic mensch who has consigned his own life as secondary to that of his glamorous client. Laura Dern is a hoot as Kelly’s equally put-upon publicist, who finds herself in a similar boat but with a more acute sense of self-preservation. The list goes on: a hilarious Stacy Keach as Kelly’s semiestranged father, a tragic Riley Keough as his semiestranged elder daughter, Greta Gerwig (Baumbach’s real-life better half) as Ron’s more down-to-earth wife, Emily Mortimer (who co-wrote the screenplay with Baumbach) as Jay’s stylist, and more and more popping up through the final reel.
Reading all this, one might imagine “Jay Kelly” as a spectacle of self-indulgence, and you would not necessarily be mistaken. The implicit flattery of the film’s star comes to a head in its climactic scene, as Kelly tears up watching a tribute reel of his greatest hits – all, of course, sourced from actual George Clooney films. Viewers without an appreciation for Clooney’s screen presence, or lacking sympathy for the existential malaise of a fabulously wealthy, devastatingly handsome old white guy, are advised to stay well enough away. But even if “Jay Kelly” is an exercise in self-indulgence, it is exceptionally pleasurable and well-crafted self-indulgence, with a playfulness that takes the edge off its maudlin overtones. George Clooney may not be the last movie star, but he’s one of the few worthy of Jay Kelly’s plaudits.
At Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge
Oscar Goff is a writer and film critic based in Somerville. He is film editor and senior critic for the Boston Hassle and his work has appeared in the monthly Boston Compass newspaper and publications such as WBUR’s The ARTery and iHeartNoise. He is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, and the Online Film Critics Society.
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