In Satyajit Ray’s Nayak (1966), Bengali movie star Uttam Kumar, playing a version of himself, gets on a train from Kolkata to Delhi to receive an award. While on the train, Kumar’s character Arindam Mukherjee grapples with his image, insecurities and fears. A train ride features in Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly too, less prominently and yet important to the namesake actor’s experience.
Hollywood star Jay Kelly (George Clooney) is on his way to Tuscany in Italy along with his manager Ron (Adam Sandler) and publicist Liz (Laura Dern) to receive a lifetime achievement award. Jay is typical of his species – he’s self-absorbed, operates from within a bubble, and is always willing to please but petulant too.
Jay has slipped into an unusually contemplative mood of late. He wants to spend time with his daughter Daisy (Grace Edwards) before she goes off to college. He is upset about the death of a favourite director, Peter (Jim Broadbent).
Memories and flashbacks are entering Jay’s present, like cinematic dream sequences. All my memories are of movies, he tells Peter. That’s what movies are for us – pieces of time, Peter replies.
Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly is a witty, fuzzy and old-fashioned film about celebrity, ageing and self-discovery. Jay Kelly, which is out on Netflix, takes gentle pot shots at Jay’s cloistered existence and the various characters in his charmed orbit. Baumbach is in Alexander Payne mode here, with a nod to Preston Sturges’s Sullivan’s Travels too.
The 132-minute movie, co-written by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer, initially wields a sharp knife encased in a velvet glove. The writers deftly set up Jay’s persona, which is indistinguishable from his personality, and his dynamic with Ron. The friendship between the men is at the heart of the movie.
Unable to function on his own, Jay is forever leaning on his loyal manager. Ron is at hand to address Jay’s worries, but he isn’t always compensated for his troubles.
An encounter between Jay and his old friend Timothy (Billy Crudup) is a masterful piece of satire, going rapidly from backslapping to backstabbing. Having declared that he will go to Italy alone if he has to and then taking his entourage along, Jay is never fully aware of how demanding he is. On the train, Jay tries to connect with the mortals who form his vast fan base, with mixed results.
The creases do reveal themselves, but are smoothened out ever so easily. Even when Jay Kelly becomes like one of those sentimental movies about spending time with loved ones before it is too late, there is always a superb cameo, a beautifully written scene, or a piece of hard-earned wisdom to savour.
The film has walk-on parts for Riley Keough, Alba Rohrwacher, Greta Gerwig, Stacy Keach, Patrick Wilson, Eve Hewson and Lars Eidinger. Baumbach assembles actors he clearly loves around a movie star he is too fond of to knock. George Clooney is utterly charming and convincingly vulnerable as Jay Kelly. Adam Sandler makes a fine manager who calls everyone a “puppy” and sacrifices his own happiness for his boss.
The prevailing mood is of mild exasperation at Jay’s ways, a view of showbiz that is fond rather than cynical. The result is an unusually sweet-natured movie, as easy-going as Jay Kelly himself.
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