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Jay Kelly movie review: “When you become famous, being famous becomes your profession,” said James Carville. He should know, being a political consultant to, among others, one of those earliest crowd pleasers, former US president Bill Clinton.
So should Jay Kelly (Clooney) who, as his manager Ron (Sandler) tells him, is the last of the old-time movie stars. The kind who were never too young to be “boys”, and will never be too old to be “elderly”; the kind with silver and not grey hair (even if a tad embellished), giving them an added layer of halo; and the kind with a million-wattage smile that lights up a room, or in Kelly’s case, an entire train.
So what ails Jay Kelly? Here is where this film with its talented cast, led by its acclaimed director Baumbach, disappoints. It turns out there is little that is pulling Kelly down apart from the usual – the “loneliness”, the “regret”, the “emptiness of stardom”, bringing with it an estranged family and, in the course of the film, a disillusioned entourage.
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While Baumbach, who has written the script along with Mortimer, is showing us the world behind the silver screen, the chaos and the confusion of it, and particularly what fame can make one oblivious to, Jay Kelly is enjoyable. The film is also quite a canter when Kelly decides he must take a train to Italy from France in the hope of catching up with his daughter, who is on board, and his team, including publicist Liz (Dern), has to make that possible at short notice.
The fans around Kelly are spellbound and he can’t get enough of them either, telling himself this is exactly what he needs as he is “tiring” of films.
The reason that these parts work so well is Clooney himself and his undeniable star power, which is hard to nurse a grudge about. So when Kelly springs off the train and chases a robber down a field and into a dilapidated old church, you feel the spring in your step too. Sandler pulls off another subtle role to near perfection, bringing genuineness to what is a complicated, parasitic relationship with the stars.
However, then Jay Kelly gets into heavier – and, in this case, unconvincing – territory about what one loses in the race to get far ahead in life.
We have all been in that race and, believe me, a few wins never hurt anybody.
Jay Kelly movie director: Noah Baumbach
Jay Kelly movie cast: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Emily Mortimer, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, Jim Broadbent
Jay Kelly movie rating: 2.5 stars
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