Film Pick of the Week: Jay Kelly - review by Yvette Huddleston
Jay Kelly Netflix, review by Yvette Huddleston
George Clooney is perfectly cast in the latest movie from director Noah Baumbach which explores the nature of celebrity, the hunger for fame and the sometimes-damaging effects of ambition, especially on those, such as friends and family, who are watching from the sidelines.
Clooney plays Hollywood A-lister Jay Kelly, now in late middle age and at a point where the offers might start slowing down. He lives a comfortable existence in a palatial home with a whole team of people around him, attending to his every need. They include his longtime manager Ron (Adam Sandler) and publicist Liz (Laura Dern) who have loyally stayed with him, and have frequently neglected their own families in order to support their client.
He is estranged from his eldest daughter Jessica (Riley Keogh), a schoolteacher who feels that she was abandoned by her father, and his youngest daughter Daisy (Grace Edwards) tolerates him, but is mildly resentful that he isn’t around very much. After wrapping on his latest movie, Kelly decides he wants to spend time with Daisy – she is about to go off to college – and is annoyed that she has made alternative plans to travel round Europe with friends. So Kelly decides he will accept a lifetime achievement award – that he has repeatedly turned down – from the organisers of a film festival in Italy and meet up with Daisy at the same time; not that she has any choice in the matter. Kelly is a man used to getting what he wants.
The script, co-written by Baumbauch and Emily Mortimer (who also has a small role as one of Kelly’s entourage) intelligently explores themes around ageing, regret and the price of fame and contains affectionate homages to films by other directors, most notably Fellini and Woody Allen. There is a lovely cameo from Jim Broadbent as a British director and mentor who helped Kelly early in his career and whom Kelly declined to support later when the director was trying to get a project off the ground. We also discover that Kelly stole a key film role from one of his friends in drama school (Billy Crudup) who then never made it as an actor. These incidents come back to haunt Kelly in dream-like sequences as he watches on. While it feels as though the movie is aspiring to a profundity it never quite achieves, it is a classy film with excellent performances from all concerned, Clooney in particular.