GEORGE CLOONEY

JAY KELLY MAY BE MORE METAPHOR THAN SCREEN CHARACTER

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

An esoteric reading of the life of a matinee idol puts actor George Clooney in front of the camera for an encore performance, of sorts.

Director Noah Baumbach creates a self referential film for Clooney about a world famous actor who anticipates that his career may be winding down in Jay Kelly (2025).

Kelly says at least twice, but what seems like over and over again, just in other ways, that portraying yourself on screen would be too difficult, thereby suggesting that the character may just have been created for Clooney through which he can express his personal feelings about his own movie career.

Clooney is playing an actor who is playing in one more performance of a lifetime.

The imaginary life that Clooney channels his emotions through involves two daughters he never had time for, because of a successful film career that kept him occupied, and a distracting entourage, composed of a manager, a bodyguard, a stylist, a publicist and a tech savvy assistant, that goes everywhere with him – that’s just how famous Jay has become.

Daughter Daisy, played by Grace Edwards, is leaving on a summer vacation just when Jay has two weeks off to catch up. And older daughter Jessica, played by Riley Keough, has moved on already with the help of a therapist.

The beginning gets a bit worse for Jay when his dear friend and the director who discovered him, so many movies ago now, dies unexpectedly.

And just one more thing before the film begins in earnest, Jay bumps into his old roommate from the acting studio days at the funeral. Billy Crudup plays Tim who reminisces enough in the parking lot with Jay to get an invite for a drink.

The moment is a bit awkward because Jay is famous from a successful acting career; and, Tim is not.

Again, the script repeats that Clooney may be acting himself when Crudup illustrates what method acting is, for old times sake, implying that Clooney is tapping into his own personal experiences, as a world famous movie actor, to act the part of a famous actor as he bows out of a successful career.

The journey can truly begin, now, with Jay’s manager, Ron, played by Adam Sandler, just continually working Jay’s star power, especially when Jay becomes a real life hero on the train by chasing down a purse snatcher.

Baumbach uses a train trip as a narrative device intended to be that old cliché about psychoanalyses being like getting aboard a train travelling back into the past.

Jay still, after all those years of acting, cannot be honest with the audience and creates two parallel narratives for himself, one that he is going to a tribute to his career in Tuscany, and two, that he is following his daughter, Daisy, around in Europe, during her last summer-long vacation as a student.

Baumbach creates a third narrative about Jay revisiting his past life on the train – after finally having the courage to mingle with the public and meet the people he has been portraying on screen for all those years.

Jay puts the method acting technique to good use and finds important events in his life and career in the other train cabins. This compression of time and space, as Jay begins to confront his past, saves a lot of scene transitions.

At some point, if you weren’t already convinced, Jay has a scene on the train during which Jay, the aging actor, is referring to himself as Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, etc, in the hopes of shaking everything  up and reminding himself that he is Jay, the fictitious character, and not George Clooney.

Either way, Jay is struggling with the reality that he is too old to continue on as a matinee idol. And in that process, the audience cannot help but feel empathetic toward George Clooney.

A light score is used sparingly, but to great effect.

Nearing the end of the film, Clooney almost jumps out of his character when Jay is asked when the last time he acted in a play.

Jay says not for a long time, but Clooney seems to have wanted to tell everyone about his successful run in theatre starring as Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck (2025), for which he received a Tony nomination for Best Actor.

All this hinting about whether or not the character is autobiographical, as Clooney puts the best parts of his screen character in front of the camera, incrementally suspends disbelief that Clooney is Jay who is really Clooney, at least operating the emotive devices inside the character.

And then, just before the closing credits, all the tears start to well up for Clooney as the past comes into the present. Everything the audience has seen, may just have been a recurring dream Clooney has been having lately.

Jay Kelly will be streaming on Netflix on December 5.