Photo courtesy of Netflix
Can a good film be based on an empty character?
The answer can be found in Jay Kelly, a new movie written by Noah Baumbach and Emily Mortimer with Baumbach directing. A movie about movie people, starring George Clooney as Kelly and Adam Sandler as Kelly’s manager Ron Sukenick, it mixes a little comedy with a lot of drama.
Kelly is a 60-year-old hero actor whose life has been orchestrated by handlers to a degree that has left him without much life experience outside of films and film characters.
Sukenick is the manager who has a life outside of filmmaking, but who reluctantly puts that life in second place to his oversight of Kelly. This is a story, told often before, of men who rank work over family, but this is that story in extremis.
Kelly, between films, learns that Daisy, his youngest daughter who is about to enter college, is spending her summer in Europe. Alone, and uncharacteristally realizing that her departure is significant to his own life, Kelly decides to accept a lifetime tribute award in Italy as a way to join his daughter in Europe.
But Kelly can’t do without the members of his entourage, who arrange to join him in his travels. The film swings back and forth between scenes of Kelly disconnected from his controllers dealing with people and processes in the real world, and Sukenick working to rein in the unmanageable Kelly while being responsive to his own family.
Sandler’s performance as Sukenick is award-worthy. He quietly presents inner turmoil and anxiety at his character losing the balance between his personal and professional responsibilities. Sukenick is manager/friend/father to Kelly, and his angst trying to manage an out-of-the-norm Kelly is palpable.
Clooney is childlike in his character’s wonder and awkwardness with life outside of film. European train scenes and the chase of a purse thief are especially successful in displaying Kelly’s naiveté.
Kelly’s entourage, which has rendered him a shell, is huge and varied. Laura Dern is his hyperactive publicist and Billy Crudup is a vindictive old friend.
Grace Edwards is a perfect Daisy, and Riley Keough plays Kelly’s older, estranged daughter who unsuccessfully seeks to have him join her in seeing a therapist (Josh Hamilton). Stacy Keach is Kelly’s father, and Patrick Wilson plays another of Sukenick’s clients.
The list of superb supporting character actors goes on.
Shot in New York, London and Tuscany, the movie is beautifully filmed by cinematographer Linus Sandgren. The musical score by Nicholas Britell parallels the richness of the performances and appropriately surrounds both comedic and dramatic scenes.
The tribute to Kelly includes a retrospective of his work (using actual footage from many of Clooney’s own films) and a home movie of Kelly’s daughters as children performing a family song-and-dance. Kelly, tearing up, then shares how his recent journey has affected the direction of his life. Make of that what you will . . . but Jay Kelly is a good film. It’s a movie about movie people portrayed by lots of movie stars in a nearly perfect old-style Hollywood film.
Editor’s Note: Jay Kelly is now playing at The SLO Film Center at the Palm Theatre.