There’s a scene in Jay Kelly, the new dramedy from Noah Baumbach, in which the titular movie star finds himself on an ordinary carriage on a trans-Europe train. Kelly, played with a metatextual tilt by George Clooney, turns on the charm for his fellow passengers. If only the stock characters and random accents around him sounded like people one might meet on a train. Or like people who might have ever existed.
With a nod to such movies as 8½ and All That Jazz, a feeble script by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer touches on interesting conceits – the isolation of stardom, the regrets of the career-driven sad dad – without having anything especially interesting to say.
Jay Kelly is introduced as a self-absorbed A-lister, riled by his canine scene partner, and requiring constant reassurance and pampering from his careworn agent (Adam Sandler) and trusty publicist (Laura Dern). The death of the director (Jim Broadbent) – who gave the actor his big break – coupled with the departure of his youngest daughter, Daisy (Grace Edwards), sends Kelly spiralling.
The emotionally flailing hero attempts to reconnect with his eldest, estranged daughter (Riley Keough) before setting off for Europe on Daisy’s trail.
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His official destination is a ceremony where he’s to receive a lifetime-achievement award at a film festival in Tuscany. All the while there are reminders of the protagonist’s lost loves and friends. Eve Hewson, playing Kelly’s first wife, appears in flashback; Billy Crudup is a double-crossed former friend who ends up in a fist-fight with the rueful hero.
Clooney brings pathos, captivating presence and a back catalogue of credits that doubles as a montage of Kelly’s movie hits, from The Thin Red Line to Michael Clayton. With his classic Hollywood aura, he’s the right man for a meditation on fame and identity. But the film around him, with its pointless comings and goings, and criminal underuse of Stacy Keach and Alba Rohrwacher, is not up to the task.
Baumbach’s characteristically barbed wit too often makes way for self-indulgence and sentimentality. Ruminations on fame as a hollow, unfulfilling enterprise have all the depth of a disposable contact lens.
It falls to Sandler to save the day. His weary, fraught turn reminds us that, away from lowbrow comedy, this is the committed, authentic star of Punch Drunk Love and Uncut Gems.
In cinemas now; on Netflix from Friday, December 5th
