Jay Kelly

I’m shocked at how much I enjoyed this. 

From the trailer I thought, no way will this one be for me. And yet, it absolutely was. 

Clooney and Sandler and everyone else putting in monumental work. Or actually, given their skills at this point of their lives, maybe not monumental work but because they are so good at what they do it feels extraordinary. 

Every game LeBron James was just putting in another day at the office he just happened to also be for a decade or two the best player in the league. You know? 

Meanwhile, Noah Baumbach and writer Emily Mortimer squeeze all the juice from this particular kind of story. It takes one or two side trips that should have been avoided but it also is funny and emotional and occasionally truthful. 

And it has two of the best running jokes in the movies this year. 

Early on I thought, “oh man, this is just Clooney doing an Entourage riff.” But nope, it finds an emotional core, moves though all the parts, and then satisfies at the end. 

What I’m pondering now, as I think about Jay Kelly is the casting. 

I am often fascinated with casting. One of my favorite westerns is Quigley Down Under, a comedy adventure that pits Tom Selleck’s noble good guy against evil Australian (or Englishman I dunno) Alan Rickman. 

Originally, Steve McQueen was supposed to have the Selleck role and that would have been a completely different movie. Something much more serious, I think, and most likely wonderful and fascinating in its own way. 

Or think of Die Hard, now think of Sly or Arnold playing John McClain. Disturbing right?

In Jay Kelly George Clooney plays a fictional version of himself, an aging movie star who has all the money and servants he wants but no familial love. One of his daughters wants nothing to do with him because he abandoned her during his salad moviemaking days.

The other, newly 18, wants to build a life for herself outside of his shadow. She’s not mad, necessarily, she’s just (as Jay Kelly frequently repeats) 18. 

“You remember what that was like.” Kelly says at one point. 

The character as played by Clooney is just the right mix of depression, arrogance, need and obliviousness. Originally, Brad Pitt was supposed to play Kelly. 

And, well, that wouldn’t work, would it. Pitt doesn’t really play vulnerable or needy. And he already took a shot at this sort of thing in Babylon. 

So who else is there? Tom Cruise? No way he’d play someone who had second thoughts about being a movie star. His whole persona is now tied into how awesome life is when you are movie star. 

Leo’s too young and his off screen life choices wouldn’t lead you to believe his character ever had kids he cared about. 

Matt Damon could pull it off but I’m not sure he or Ben Affleck could do the wink, wink nudge, nudge this is really close to how my life actually was that Clooney pulls off here. 

So, that leaves Clooney.

And it works beautifully because of him. 

Stacy Keach has a meaty little part as Kelly’s dad. Jim Broadbent is magnificent as always playing the now elderly director who gave Kelly his big break. 

The only person I’m mixed on is Adam Sandler playing Kelly’s long suffering personal manager. He knocks some scenes out of the park, especially one where he has an uncomfortable client meeting in Italy. 

But the role calls for whatever the modern equivalent of either Woody Allen (if you want nerdy and nebbish) or Rip Torn (if you want protector/ pal). 

Sandler almost gets to one of those and then the other but not quite. 

The issue may not even be Sandler’s acting but my reaction to him. When I see him I see the guy who was once the biggest comedy star in the world.

Watching him play a different kind of character than the one he plays in “Adam Sandler” movies is strange.

His role in Uncut Gems suggests it’s possible but it’s still a difficult thing — for me at least.

If you are like me and you saw the trailer and thought, “the last thing I want to watch is another Hollywood movie where everybody gazes at their own navel for two hours,” all I can tell you is that this movie is exactly that, and it’s still great.

In the end, there is a tribute to Jay Kelly, and I wondered if Baumbach would be cheeky enough to handle it in a certain way. 

Reader, he was just the right amount of cheeky.