Review: Jay Kelly

Image courtesy of Netflix.

"It's a hell of a responsibility to be yourself," Sylvia Plath said. "It's much easier to be somebody else or nobody at all." 

This quote appears before the credits of "Jay Kelly," Noah Baumbach's latest film that stars George Clooney in the titular role of an actor who has used his profession to mostly avoid responsibility for others, the result of which is that he has one daughter, Daisy (Grace Edwards), who runs off to be with her friends after graduating college, rather than spend the summer with him, and another, Jessica (Riley Keough), who actively avoids him.

The only person who appears constantly by Jay's side is Ron (a very good Adam Sandler), his personal assistant who believes that his client is also his friend but whom Jay points out collects 15 percent of his earnings. As the film opens, Jay has just finished shooting a movie and is about to jump right into another - something which we are led to believe is probably common for him to avoid much downtime - when Ron tells him about a film festival in Italy that wants to give him a lifetime achievement award.

At first, Jay balks at the idea of attending the festival, but thinks twice about it when he realizes that it gives him the chance to essentially stalk Daisy and her friends as they travel around Europe. Because Jay can't travel without an entourage, he is also accompanied by a number of others in his orbit, including his agent (Laura Dern).

But before all this takes place, two important moments occur. Jay learns that the director (Jim Broadbent) whom he viewed as his mentor has died and, at his funeral, he listens as the man's son talks at great length about how his father was rarely present in his life. Then, at the funeral, Jay runs into an old pal, Timothy (Billy Crudup), with whom he started out as an actor. The two go out for drinks and the scene quickly goes south.

Clooney has long been considered one of the last Hollywood movie stars and the portrayal of the lead character gets a lot of mileage out of this. There's a scene in which he's mobbed while boarding a train in Italy - something Clooney has likely experienced in the real world - which then morphs into an amusing sequence in which Jay holds court with all of the passengers in one of the train's cars and goes as far as inviting them to the reception for him at the film festival. 

This may be due to the fact that few others in his life have any intention to attend the festival. His father (Stacy Keach) briefly shows up but there are obvious signs as to why their relationship is frosty, and his daughters want nothing to do with the occasion. Ultimately, Jay only has Ron to depend upon to attend, but Ron often speaks to Jay in the same patient mantras that he also uses toward his young children, with whom he mostly conducts a relationship over the phone as he flies all over the place with Jay.

"Jay Kelly" keeps its central character at somewhat of a remove in the present but deepens his character as he reflects upon moments in the past - most notably, reminiscing on a scene with an actress (Eve Hewson) from a film early in his career and another in which his rivalry with Timothy becomes a little clearer. It's not until the film's finale that Baumbach takes the picture in a direction that's surprisingly sentimental, considering that the film is from the director of "The Squid and the Whale" and "Margot at the Wedding."

While I wouldn't rank "Jay Kelly" among Baumbach's best, it's a very well acted film that ends up packing an emotional punch when it needs to. Clooney is solid in the titular role, Keough makes her few moments onscreen count, and Dern is very good as always, but it's Sandler who steals the show as the devoted but understandably frustrated Ron. 

It's an overall thoughtful film that takes Plath's opening quote seriously as it observes the life of a man who felt the need to fill most of his hours and years pretending to be someone else to avoid having to be himself.