Jay Kelly

Some movies are not for everyone. This film isn't really about an actor or his team of people. It's about choices. The choices we all make each day and each year that add up to our life.

It feels like every middle to late middle aged person should relate to the characters in this film, even if they've made good choices (or ones they can live with).

If only we could do it over again, I wonder how we'd all do?

An aging megastar (George Clooney) discovers that he has sacrificed far too much of his magnificent 35-year career in his private life. With his entire entourage (including Laura Dern and Adam Sandler as assistants whose sole purpose in life is Jay Kelly's well-being), he follows his recently grown daughter to Paris and accepts a trivial film award in Tuscany.

Hollywood is once again searching its own navel for entertaining stories about privileged people experiencing an existential crisis. The only noteworthy aspects are the European stars in minor supporting roles. Alba Rohrwacher plays a laid-back festival employee from Italy, and Lars Eidinger appears as a German cyclist with mental health issues. Oh yes, and it was nice to see Stacy Keach again, who plays Jay Kelly's father.

You can certainly laugh in Noah Baumbach's film, but primarily at the clash between the saccharine world of a Hollywood star and the everyday reality of ordinary people. It's entertaining, but also quickly forgotten.

This film stretches a premise that could barely sustain a short into a full-length feature, and the padding shows. The characters exist in isolation from one another, creating zero chemistry or meaningful interaction that might draw viewers in.

The casting defaults to the tired formula of white male protagonists, while Europe is rendered through embarrassingly outdated stereotypes that feel decades out of touch. The performances across the board are wooden and unconvincing, suggesting either poor direction or miscast roles-likely both.

In two decades of watching films, this stands out as the most unnecessary addition to cinema I've encountered. Skip it.

If an aging, successful, handsome movie star makes a movie about an aging, successful, handsome movie star - you are constantly pondering how much of this is about him in real life and how much is just fiction? Whilst every actor must bring something from their life into a part we do need to remember that this is just a movie, it is not a George Clooney biopic. But boy it is hard to get that out of your head.

As a movie it is fine. It is not sensational, it is not moving, it is not exciting. It is gentle enough exploring the price of pursuing something at the cost of family and personal relationships.

There is achievement, but the price is too high.

Clooney is always excellent and the other roles, significantly Adam Sandler, (great to see him not in a childish comedy), all play well. The lifestyle depicted is hard to believe but here is where Clooney's real life must be a check. If this is not the way big movie stars travel then he would know. So I assume the entourage that accompany him for no good reason must be what happens when you are rich, famous and in need of babysitting. I can well imagine a secretary coming along but your lawyer?

All of them are leeches of one sort or another even the dedicated manager Sandler.

Do I care about Jay Kelly as a person? Not much. He's not a bad man but not a particularly good one either. He is a very ordinary man with talent and an extraordinary job.

I appreciated that Jay Kelly the superstar actor is not a diva. He doesn't throw things or shout and scream. He is perfectly pleasant which is what you hope for from such people. But he is somewhat self-absorbed which must be hard to avoid when everyone tells you how wonderful you are.

The last line of the movie, which I won't give away, is cleverly done. It could mean several different things and each viewer has to make their mind up about which way Kelly means it.

I strongly suspect that Clooney, as himself, would not have needed to say it.

Given the low Internet scores and mid critical reception, I came in with low expectations, and was pleasantly surprised by how moved I was by this movie.

I'm a sucker anyway for movies about making movies, but this one hit me hard, I think because I'm at the right time of my life for this kind of story. There's a moment when a fan of George Clooney's movie star character tells him that looking at him makes him feel like he's seeing his life in front of his eyes, and I know exactly what he means. I'm watching a generation of actors who I've grown up with and who I revere aging out of their stardom, and in some cases starting to die. It used to be that watching tribute montages of a favorite actor's film roles was simply thrilling, but now it's tinged with sadness and melancholy. Now it's like watching the passage of time not just in the actor's life, but in my own as well.

"Jay Kelly" digs into that feeling and articulates it better than I can articulate it myself. And it also happens to be well acted and filmed, and it looks terrific.

Grade: A.