Jay Kelly // Film Review

There was a reasonable worry coming into Jay Kelly that Noah Baumbach’s latest could prove much too niche or vain for its own good. 

The opening stretch doesn’t help matters, introducing us to the late-midlife crisis of an ageing Hollywood megastar via a tracking shot across a chaos set, one which draws immediate comparisons to Apple’s TV comedy The Studio and Damian Chazelle’s Babylon (with which the film shares a DOP). On one occasion, George Clooney’s titular leading man goes so far as to say he has lost touch with the common people he is meant to be portraying, a line which very nearly becomes the year’s most self-aware ‘Hollywood moment’.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take long for Jay Kelly to puncture its proverbial showbiz bubble, with the needle coming in the form of an old college pal to Kelly, played with electrifying mystique by Billy Crudup. Their subsequent conversation brings Baumbach back to familiar Marriage Story territory, as his way with words as weapons sends our hero running from the Hollywood machine with more life than he’s shown in years. 

While undeniably funny in parts, Jay Kelly gradually scales back its comedic sensibilities from here, instead exposing new layers in its Singin In The Rain double act between Clooney and his manager Ron (Adam Sandler, in an Oscar-nominated supporting turn - you heard it here first). The result is a story of two men reckoning with their own maturing loneliness, while at all times surrounded by the glitz and pop of the movie business. It’s a terribly cold tale, with a knotty, unfulfilling finale which seems to directly invert its opening minutes. 

The arc taking us from business to bittersweet largely plays out across the literal backdrop of a European road trip, as bright and trendy L.A. condos give way to Parisian trains and Tuscany orchards. The world as presented here by Baumbach never ceases to be beautiful, even as the smiles of those enjoying it begin to dim. There is an occasional issue with flat backdrops which feel designed for Netflix rather than the big screen, but it’s a gripe that would matter more in a film that wasn’t this character-and-dialogue-forward to begin with.

Conversely, Nicholas Britell’s score does wonders to raise the material, often playing like the obnoxiously hopeful cousin to his past work on Succession. This is not a film that plays coy with its themes, as just about every facet of the drama is unified around them.

Although Jay Kelly is imperfect, it is far from the eye-rolling memoir it could have been, side-stepping pitfalls even as the lives of Clooney and his character become increasingly blurred (the ending, in this regard, is staggering). The Nespresso man has never been better or more honest than he is here, and if he doesn’t make you cry, Sandler’s puppy eyes should more than do the trick.