George Clooney is, in one sense, ideal casting for Noah Baumbach’s pondering on late discontents of the American movie star.
“It’s like a movie where I’m playing myself,” the titular heart-throb actually says. Well, yes. Clooney has, for a few decades, seemed the platonic ideal of the great star.
Elsewhere in the film, Jay Kelly – not George Clooney, you understand – intones his own name alongside those of Clark Gable and Cary Grant. It seems the character really is a successor to those untouchable giants, but, unlike them, Clooney has always been more famous for being a movie star than for being the star of movies. More to do with red carpet, less to do with The Thin Red Line.
An investigation of that quandary would make an interesting film. Baumbach attempts something more conventional: a satire of how stardom cuts “the talent” off from reality.
First Look: Watch out for Eve Hewson in George Clooney’s cameo-stuffed new satire on stardom
Christy: Clattering, noisy, joyful portrait of life in a troubled north Cork suburb
Little Trouble Girls: Lush, haunting story of a repressed teen’s sexual awakening
The ultimate in movie-star glamour: Emma Stone, Julia Roberts and George Clooney get their speedboats ready
Many shots are taken at many barn doors. Every time Clooney asserts his ordinariness someone pops up to put a drink in his hand. He travels everywhere with a fleet of cars, each stuffed with desperate underlings. He snorts at the idea of a retrospective award but fumes when it goes instead to a rival.
The film does indeed reflect how megastardom goes about its business. The script, by the director and Emily Mortimer, piles on the irony with admirable diligence. But this is about as cutting-edge as making fun of Donald Trump for being orange.
All that grumbled about, Jay Kelly, lavishly shot mostly on European locations by Linus Sandgren, offers classy entertainment throughout. We begin with Kelly annoyed that his younger daughter (Grace Edwards) is heading off on holiday weeks before embarking for university. Profiting from an assistant’s online cunning, he learns what spots she is visiting and, unconvincingly claiming mere fortuitousness, turns up on the train the poor girl is taking through France.
What follows is a picaresque romp that gives decent cameos to a staggering array of actors. Is that Jamie Demetriou, from Stath Lets Flats, as an oddball on a train? It is. Is that Isla Fisher appearing for seconds as someone’s wife? It is. Look out for Eve Hewson as Kelly’s first wife in a flashback. I don’t think Alba Rohrwacher, as a film-festival factotum named Alba, is playing herself, but who can be sure?
Amid all this chatter and fuss, Adam Sandler stands out as Kelly’s loyal manager, the fellow who helped him up from nearly nothing, to some, but not nearly enough, thanks from his employer. Like everyone else, he behaves as if minding a very handsome, very rich child. Money engenders compliance.
Clooney himself does well enough with double takes and raised eyebrows, but there is never any sense of him stretching beyond his stock smoothie. He does not do quite enough to make the film into the 8⅛ or the Stardust Memories it thinks itself to be.
Still, it passes the time. Returning to Venice International Film Festival three years after opening affairs with the unlovely White Noise, the director of Marriage Story and Frances Ha just about gets himself back on track. Just about.
Jay Kelly will be in cinemas from Friday, November 14th, and on Netflix from Friday, December 5th
