Jay Kelly

 

Noah Baumbach's Jay Kelly takes a dewy-eyed look at relational superficiality through the film's title character, played by Oscar-winner George Clooney. The movie is a sobering statement on the search for connections after all bridges have been burned or left to rot.

Kelly is a wealthy, aging Hollywood superstar, whose closest "relationship" appears to be his manager Ron, a pitch-perfect Adam Sandler. Ron has been Jay's companion, coach and counselor for 30 years, which has done harm to his own life and relationships with his family. Kelly's uncapped self-centeredness is beginning to wear on Ron, as Jay grows increasingly difficult.

Jay begins an examination of his life at the funeral of his close friend and former director Peter, played in flashbacks by Jim Broadbent. He continues the memory trip while catching up with a drama school classmate Tim (Billy Crudup), who was at the funeral.

The meeting between the international leading man and the now child therapist turns ugly, as Tim admits still resenting Jay for taking a movie part he worked hard to test for when they were in school and later stealing away Tim's girlfriend. Comically and pitifully, Tim is itching for a fight, and the confrontation, though not shown, gets physical, with Tim receiving most of the punishment.

The next day, Jay, with a black eye, decides to cancel his plans for a new film and follow his high-school-graduate daughter Daisy (Grace Edwards) on a trip to France and Italy. Despite her objections and without her knowledge, he and his cadre of helpers book the trip, which will include a stop in Tuscany for a tribute to his career that Ron arranged.

The entire excursion is unpleasant for the actor's entourage, who are tired of trying to accommodate Jay's lack of focus and inattention. Baumbach capsulizes Jay's insularity in the several instances of him talking over others and drifting off while they are speaking to him. He's numb to his own discourtesy.

Members of his team and his own rather dyspeptic father (Stacy Keach) gradually abandon him, and he is left with Ron in Tuscany. Jay soon realizes he lacks the mettle to make real human connections; his life has been scripted for decades. He is a fabrication, and he has forgotten how to live with authenticity.

The scene at the Jay Kelly tribute includes clips from Clooney's own pictures. This invites viewers to wonder, especially when the fourth wall appears to be broken at the end, how much of Jay is George, who by most published accounts is one of the most beloved living Hollywood actors.

And further, we members of the audience might ask how much of Jay Kelly is in us.