All My Memories Are Movies

George Clooney swears he’s not playing himself in Jay Kelly. But it’s hard to see where the actor ends and the role begins. 

Directed by Noah Baumbach (While We’re Young), who wrote the screenplay with Emily Mortimer (Lars and the Real Girl, The Newsroom), the film is very much a star vehicle that knows it’s a star vehicle. It’s definitely entertaining and attractive to look at. But it treads familiar territory in that it tells the clichéd story of a character who realizes they’ve put their career before their friends and family, and who tries to make things right. Given who the film’s star is, that makes it a bit difficult to feel much compassion.

Jay Kelly begins with Jay on a movie set, wrapping up one picture and just days away from the start of another. A conversation soon after with one of his daughters reveals that she (and others) see things he doesn’t, such as the fact that he’s better with an audience than he is one-on-one, and that he can’t ever be alone. In fact, a running gag is that every time his inability to be alone is mentioned, Jay’s bodyguard shows up with a drink for Jay.

And then, Jay runs into Tim, an old acting-class buddy and former roommate, played by Billy Crudup (The Morning Show), who’s been carrying a decades-long grudge because he believes Jay “stole” the career that should’ve been his. The reunion shakes Jay’s sense of himself, and in a wobble of ego and insecurity, he decides to forgo making his next movie and, instead, heads off to Tuscany to accept a career tribute award at a film festival — because, of course, a crisis of meaning has to unfold somewhere beautiful. 

Cue the comedy involving Jay’s team — including his publicist (Laura Dern, who won an Oscar for her performance in Baumbach’s Marriage Story), stylist (Mortimer), and others — all boarding a private plane and then an already crowded public train (with all kinds of adoring fans, naturally) en route to the festival, as well as Jay’s slow realization that he’s made multiple mistakes along the way to becoming “the last of the classic movie stars,” as Ron (Adam Sandler), Jay’s loyal, long-suffering business manager, describes him.

Baumbach keeps the tone in his familiar dramedy style: sharp little observations, amiable humor, and an undercurrent of melancholy. Scene to scene, the movie is engaging and very easy to look at. It moves well, it’s often funny, and it knows how to play to an audience that enjoys the inside-baseball feel of a film about a movie star’s life. 

Throughout, Clooney does the thing he does best: playing a man who’s utterly charming yet kind of a mess. Jay is a rich, beloved star wrestling with a problem the rest of us would happily trade for our own. But even when Jay is being selfish or oblivious, Clooney’s affability acts like a cushion. It’s not surprising that he would give a believable performance as an aging movie star, so Clooney wins you over in most every scene, making Jay likable despite his faults. 

The true heart of the movie, though, is Sandler, who gives one of his best-ever performances as the guy who’s kept Jay’s world running for years. (His wife is played by Barbie writer/director and Baumbach’s real-life wife, Greta Gerwig.) The Sandman brings a sweetness that makes Ron instantly lovable, and his quiet frustration as he realizes how one-sided his relationship with Jay is gives the movie its biggest emotional pulse. 

Jay and Ron’s relationship is the movie at its sharpest: a messy tangle of friendship, dependency, and the weird dynamic of working for someone who’s always the main character. When Ron looks at Jay and says, “You’re Jay Kelly, but I’m Jay Kelly, too,” it’s gutting. You can feel all the years Ron spent prioritizing Jay’s life over his own to keep Jay’s career afloat, and now he’s finally wondering if what they have is an authentic connection or just a business arrangement. 

The problem is that the film wants you to feel just as much sympathy for Jay as you do for Ron, and that’s a harder sell. Jay’s crisis may be real, but he’s also incredibly famous, rich, and privileged. He’s George Clooney, for God’s sake. Jay increasingly isolates himself over the course of the movie, then panics about being alone. Eventually, you’re left thinking, This guy doesn’t have it so bad. Suffice it to say, the film doesn’t fully earn the emotional payoff it’s reaching for.

Not surprisingly, Jay Kelly builds to a late-game catharsis where tears flow and Jay realizes that fame can’t fill the hole relationships typically do. This happens while we watch a compilation of clips from Clooney’s actual movies — everything from Three Kings to One Fine Day to Leatherheads to Syriana is included (no Batman and Robin, though) — and it brings the film back to the question of whether we’re watching Clooney play a role or a version of himself, and if the answer even matters.

Still, the actor is so charming and watchable that even if Jay isn’t a fully realized character, you stay with him. The film is a pleasantly bittersweet, self-aware Hollywood hangout movie with two appealing performances and a soft spot for people who can’t quite separate their work from their lives. It’s not Baumbach’s most piercing film, but it’s a witty, star-driven one that’s easy to recommend — especially if Clooney being Clooney is your idea of a good night at the movies.

I’m giving Jay Kelly a B.

(Jay Kelly is in select theaters now. It will premiere on Netflix on December 5.)