Jay Kelly

 

Director Noah Baumbach

Baumbach on the set with George Clooney

Clooney with Adam Sandler

Crudup, Dern, Baumbach, and Sandler

The boys, Baumbach, Sandler, and Clooney

JAY KELLY              C+                                                                                                               USA  Great Britain  Italy  (132 mi)  2025  d: Noah Baumbach   

All my memories are movies.                                                                                                           —Jay Kelly (George Clooney)

A somewhat disjointed, emotionally disconnected attempt to do a Felliniesque 8 ½ (1963) existential reassessment of one’s life and career, elevating 60-ish actor George Clooney to the Marcello Mastroianni role, where a whirlwind of behind-the-scenes showbiz personalities are suddenly thrust centerstage, and the surrounding chaos of celebrity entourages suddenly become the focus of the film.  Written with Clooney in mind by Baumbach and British actress Emily Mortimer, both also making brief screen appearances, where only a real movie star would get the underlying nuances of this role, re-examining familiar Baumbach themes of family, separation, resentment, and personal reckoning, the question remains whether anything of real value arises from this trail of missed opportunities and perplexing existential confusion in this overlong film, lacking the subversive edge of his earlier work.  Is George Clooney working with Noah Baumbach a match made in heaven?  Jettisoning a movie career from his success as a handsome leading man in television, Clooney’s best work remains Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight (1998), which features early performances in the budding careers of George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, not yet stars, yet both sizzling onscreen, followed by David O. Russell’s THREE KINGS (1999), the Coen Brother’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), BURN AFTER READING (2008), and Hail, Caesar! (2016), Soderbergh’s OCEANS ELEVEN (2001), Stephen Gaghan’s SYRIANA (2005), Tony Gilroy’s MICHAEL CLAYTON (2007), Jason Reitman’s UP IN THE AIR (2009), Alexander Payne’s The Descendants (2011), Clooney’s own GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK (2005), The Ides of March (2011), and The Monuments Men (2014), Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity – 3D (2013), and Jodie Foster’s Money Monster (2016), where there are ups and downs, but he remains one of the familiar faces of Hollywood.  As for Baumbach, these are not exactly the snarky intelligent kids or anxiety-ridden young adults that comprise so much of his early work in Kicking and Screaming (1995), The Squid and the Whale (2005), Margot at the Wedding (2007), Greenberg (2010), Frances Ha (2012), While We're Young (2014), The Meyerwitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017), and Marriage Story (2019).  What this film brings is plenty of Hollywood money from Netflix, feeling excessive and over-bloated, yet that’s the point, featuring an A-list cast that is to die for, and while essentially cut from the same cloth, this breezy effort doesn’t hold a candle to Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället) (1957), Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz (1979), or Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories  (1980), lacking the brutal autobiographical honesty those films bring.  Strangely opening with a quote from Sylvia Plath, a highbrow American poet whose career abruptly ended all too soon, it eloquently provides the framework for the film, “It’s a hell of a responsibility to be yourself.  It’s much easier to be someone else or nobody at all.”  The lush orchestration by Nicholas Britell is cheesy and overly melodramatic, literally pounding us over the head, though the piano score is more in balance with the brief moments of introspection, while the 35mm cinematography by Linus Sandgren, who has worked before with Damien Chazelle and David O. Russell, is always complimentary, yet this is a vacuous film with no lingering aftereffects, where what’s missing are the meticulously crafted human emotions in Baumbach’s other films, nominated three times for a Best Screenplay Oscar, feeling more like escapist, big budget entertainment, which is unlike anything else in his career of smaller yet boldly personal filmmaking.

What this film lacks, however, is Fellini’s visionary artistry, dark and surreal, creating a psychic kaleidoscope in which Mastroianni’s virtues and peccadilloes, fears and hopes, are quite literally paraded before our eyes, creating a character so dangerously complex that his image forever became emblematic of Fellini himself.  That doesn’t happen here, as no one associates George Clooney as a mirror image of Baumbach, instead Clooney plays himself and his own stardom in what may well be a career-defining performance, where the dreamlike flashbacks and other intrusions into his midlife crisis feel mildly entertaining, but hardly revelatory, seemingly overly shallow, with too many underdeveloped subplots.  In fact, this could be a candidate for the most insipid and least authentic film in Baumbach’s career, the most mainstream and conventionally old-fashioned, a thoroughly polished product and a hollow crowdpleaser, where it’s hard not to think this film is drastically out of step with the times by dealing with the problems of the super privileged.  While it’s not a disaster in the making, it just feels so frivolous and excessive, like the ravings of an overly selfish man, continually placing his career over family, irrespective of the emotional harm, and while he has second thoughts later in his life, his attempts at reconciliation come up short, as the damage has already been done, where his children really don’t want to be around him anymore, sickened by the emotional negligence he has inflicted into their lives, like a black hole.  It’s hard to feel sympathy for this man, yet he’s emblematic of the kind of powerful men now running the government, elitist billionaires placing career over family, or even the interests of the nation, where it’s all about money and power.  While this raises no real questions about the repercussions of politics or capitalism in our lives, it does expose the empty vacuum left as the price of success, where there’s obviously a trade-off, becoming fabulously wealthy as opposed to happy.  These aren’t the kinds of questions asked by ordinary citizens, where it’s hard to feel sympathy for the privileged super rich, as they have all the advantages.  While there is a chic and sophisticated cool in the way this is presented, it breaks no new ground, with Clooney as famous actor Jay Kelly basically doing a riff on himself and his own publicly acclaimed persona, looking back with regret on certain events that shaped him and his career, examining his personal life and some of the choices he’s made, essentially re-examining the legacy he is leaving behind.  At one point he looks at himself in the mirror and compares himself with movie greats from the past, a very self-aware moment, yet he’s also completely oblivious to the emotional wreckage he leaves in his wake, though he couldn’t have done it without Adam Sandler as his agent Ron Sukenick coming along for the ride, a sidekick who’s always there for him through thick and thin, dropping everything at a moment’s notice, continually assisting him any way he can while sacrificing his own family’s well-being, and in the process places his own personal life in constant turmoil, often turning this into a darkly comical buddy movie, yet the question remains whether this is a vanity project or whether this actually holds any lasting artistic value.  You might think it would matter that so many in the cast are celebrity offspring (Clooney, Laura Dern, Riley Keough, and Stacy Keach) or married to fellow artists (Mortimer, Baumbach, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, and Patrick Wilson), gaining personal insight through their own life experiences, and while it may help with the minute personal details of their roles, this is no romanticized ode to Hollywood, more of a cautionary tale about what we sacrifice for success.

There are self-reflective similarities between this film and Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi) (2025), both exploring the dysfunctional relationship between a man and his two adult daughters, who he mostly ignored to focus on his career, while also exploring the delicate balance between art and identity, but Trier handles the familial relationships with so much more complexity and depth, showcasing a poetic eloquence with richly-layered filmmaking.  Premiering at the Venice Film Festival, this is a movie built around the making of movies, as we see the daily anxieties and the juggled priorities, though it opens with a dizzyingly immersive film set, as the camera glides around in a long, single take with overlapping dialogue, reminiscent of Robert Altman’s The Player (1992), catching all the various personalities in shadowed silhouettes, producers, managers, camera operators and assistants, yet at the center of this orchestrated chaos is Jay Kelly (Clooney) lying on the ground with a gunshot wound, offering a near-death monologue that wraps up the film before asking the director whether he can go again, thinking he can add more to the scene, essentially opening the door for viewers to enter this highly exclusive world, with a myriad of voices heard offscreen.  “What do you say to people who say you only play yourself?”  It’s a question asked not only of actor Jay Kelly, but of Clooney himself, who’s been playing some version of himself since the beginning, incredibly handsome, suave and debonair, with a witty rapport, like a reincarnation of Cary Grant, one of only four men to have been voted “the sexiest man alive” twice by People magazine, the others being Richard Gere, Brad Pitt, and Johnny Depp.  Sandler showed a different side of himself in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love (2002), turning compulsively out of control with a gambling addiction in the Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gems (2019), while here he straddles the line between having his own life and disappearing in the Jay Kelly universe, and is on the phone for nearly the entire film, usually talking to his wife Lois (Greta Gerwig) about the latest family emergency, where he’s emotionally exhausted, torn between two worlds, trying to hold his family together from afar.  But he’s a trusted male companion for Kelly, omnipresent, going wherever the actor goes, as does Laura Dern as his publicity agent Liz, following him around along with an everpresent bodyguard Silvano (Giovanni Zeqireya), hair and make-up artist Candy (Emily Mortimer), and even an intern.  While the man likes to complain that he’s always alone, someone is always by his side, where his every whim is catered to, but they’re simply invisible to him, as he takes them for granted.  “We’re not to him what he is to us,” Liz tells Ron.  Putting himself on a pedestal is the first order of business, where perhaps most especially his family become secondary figures in the life he’s chosen, like a solar planet with the moons and stars orbiting around him, where tuning them out seems necessary, at least to him, to maintain his own professional equilibrium, as he needs to be hyper-fixated on each successive role.  Despite this, he can be standoffish and emotionally inaccessible, keeping viewers, fans, family and friends at arm’s length, lacking the exploratory, character-driven nature of Baumbach’s previous films.  Maybe this reveals more about the destructive power of the industry itself than having anything to do with the actual world around us.  In Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s showbiz movie ALL ABOUT EVE (1950), Bette Davis gives an infamous monologue while contemplating her own stardom, “The things you drop on your way up the ladder so you can move faster.  You forget you’ll need them again.” 

Much like Richard Linklater, Baumbach has built a career accentuating the complex interactions between characters, where his emotional authenticity established him as an important voice of independent cinema, yet there’s much less of that here, sacrificing the usual finesse, as characters routinely appear and disappear within the scenes, with few sticking around, outside of Ron, making it much more difficult to assess, as this never really delves deep enough to challenge the viewers.  Supposedly the most reflective performance in Clooney’s career, “the last of the classic movie stars,” he’s an actor facing his mortality while contemplating his personal and professional choices, feeling more like a road movie, told in a non-linear fashion, with extensive use of flashbacks, moving between his real self and his movie star façade.  Perhaps the most powerful scene in the entire film is a mix of the past and the present, meeting up with an old friend from his young actor studio days, as he runs into Billy Crudup as Timothy, sharing a drink in the present, rehashing old times, recalling that Timothy was the most talented actor in the class, someone who could make anything interesting, and to prove it, he has him read the menu, which turns out to be flabbergastingly good, taking us all by surprise, making so much out of so little.  For a few minutes of screen time, it’s simply phenomenal.  But their respective careers took off in opposite directions following a single audition, with a younger Timothy (Louis Partridge) nervously reading for the part, with a younger Kelly (Charlie Rowe) feeding him the lines, until the director Peter Schneider (Jim Broadbent, modeled on Peter Bogdanovich, who mentored Baumbach) decides to switch the roles and have Kelly audition for the part.  The scene plays out with Clooney in the present mode off to the side of the frame looking on at their younger selves, like stepping into a memory, a technique that was used by Robert Altman in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), a pivotal moment in their lives where he essentially stole the role from Timothy, who continues to hold a grudge to this day, angrily giving Kelly a black eye before the scene is over, happening offscreen, requiring the expertise of a make-up artist to smooth over the rough edges for his public image.  The real bone of contention is between his two kids, two daughters, Jessica (Riley Keough) and Daisy (Grace Edwards), with the completely estranged Jessica trying to pull him into her therapy session, amenable at first, but he quickly exits when he realizes it’s all about the mistakes he’s made, getting a little bit too real, while Daisy is traveling through Europe with friends before heading off to college in the fall, surprising her unannounced on the train one day, which is an unwelcome visit when she realizes he’s been stalking her through her credit card transactions, wanting nothing more to do with him.  Yet these are the two people whose approval he most wants in his life now that his career is slowing down, suddenly finding himself with time on his hands.  While he’s essentially en route to pick up a lifetime achievement award in Tuscany, watching tribute clips of his own films, which turn out to be Clooney’s movies in his own CINEMA PARADISO (1998) moment, continually thinking about his life along the way, his world splits apart at the seams, seemingly losing everyone he holds dear, where his view of himself comes under scrutiny, regretting he wasn’t there more for his children, where the wondrous flashbacks of the two giggling girls doing amateur outdoor theater as Kelly and Kelly in the back yard are simply adorable, but it’s a reminder of what he’s left behind, adding a tragic humanistic element to the price of fame.     

Good One

 

Writer/director India Donaldson

actress Lily Collias

Donaldson with Lily Collias

The director on the set

GOOD ONE               B                                                                                                               USA  (89 mi)  2024  ‘Scope  d: India Donaldson

Premiering at Sundance in 2024, yet also widely circulating on the festival circuit, where it played in more than thirty different film festivals, including Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival, yet very little has been heard about this film, flying completely under the radar, where this is about as minimalist a film as you could possible create, seemingly out of nothing, with no narrative to speak of, a portrait in miniature of passing into adulthood, yet it’s all bathed in the pristine naturalism of a 3-day backpacking trek through the national forest of the Catskills in upstate New York.  While it bears a resemblance to Kelly Reichardt’s early film Old Joy (2006), which may be the cinematic template for this film, it lacks the sly homoeroticism and 60’s counterculture vibe of that film, which was shot in the rugged Oregon Cascade mountains of the Pacific northwest, instead approaching the subject through the lens of a generational divide.  It may also recall the outsider father/daughter dynamic living off the grid deep in the woods from Debra Granik’s remarkable 2018 Top Ten List #5 Leave No Trace.  Pared down to its bare bones, there’s little to no story, as not much happens, where this is about as low-key as you can get, more of a character study with nuance that is deceptively simple, where what lies beneath the surface is everything.  The daughter of New Zealand filmmaker Roger Donaldson (one of the many producers), having grown up in the business, this is the director’s debut feature, written with an eye on minute details, where if you blink you’ll miss what’s happening here, as it’s about as subtle a film as you’ll ever see, with a few interesting 70’s and 80’s choices of alternative music, like Kay Gardner - Touching Souls YouTube (5:45), Kevyn Dymond - Endless Present [US] Psych Folk (1984) YouTube (3:16), or a Nico and the Velvet Underground sounding Moonlove - All Your Mysteries YouTube (2:45).  Lily Collias in her first leading role is 17-year old Sam, a girl from Brooklyn in a relationship with another girl, mostly unseen except through text messages, just weeks away from heading off to college, becoming the central figure of the film as she embarks on a weekend excursion with two divorced dads, her own, Chris, James Le Gros from Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women (2016), and his longtime best friend Matt, Danny McCarthy from the Coen brother’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018).  The total opposite of a Hollywood depiction, this trimmed down, offbeat approach is much more authentic, capturing the human experience in such a raw and visceral way, where nothing feels overly forced, accentuating what’s left unspoken, with a continual back and forth between these three characters, yet right from the outset there is turbulence, as Matt’s teenage son Dylan was also supposed to go, but abruptly refuses at the last minute, which is seen as part of the collateral damage from the recent divorce, still angry at his dad, blaming him for their separation.  Every child has that moment when they realize their own parents are flawed.  And while there is plenty of muttering under his breath, Matt is resigned to go without him, but it’s an inauspicious sign undermining whatever good intentions were originally planned.  Essentially a coming-of-age, father-daughter movie, but not a conventional one, with Matt serving as a comic relief sidekick and the butt of all jokes, continually making cocky and potentially offensive statements, as the filmmaker plays around with audience expectations and how easy it is to ignore the warning signs, where you never know what lies ahead as they head into the woods.    

Another film that was developed during the pandemic, allowing Donaldson an opportunity to spend time building her fictionalized characters, inspired by how an isolated environment could draw out family dynamics, often in funny and unexpected ways, creating something that was intimate and emotionally contained.  Ostensibly a buddy movie between two bickering old friends whose competing egos are a handful, continually airing long-held grievances, both seemingly suffering from a midlife crisis, chirping at one another endlessly, much of it dealing with their own personal regrets, with an overcontrolling Chris coming across as a self-absorbed know-it-all, who left Sam’s mother for a younger woman (she cheated first is his rationale), while the more anxiously insecure Matt wallows in his combustible feelings, with Sam silently sitting in the middle, occasionally acting as the arbitrar, continually trying to smooth things over.  Everything happens very slowly, as this film is painstakingly patient, allowing the words to sit with viewers and resonate, where it’s never anything profound, but more a reflection of their wounded state of mind, where both men come across as damaged goods with frazzled nerves, who tend to get tipsy, bringing along a flask, where they seem to be their own worst enemies, all but ignoring Sam, who may as well be invisible.  After spending the night in a one-roomed motel with two beds, and Sam sleeping on the floor, where the guys spend most of the evening in the bar, they get up early the next day, with Chris finding fault with everything Matt decides to pack, or overpack, as he’s brought any number of useless items, perhaps a metaphor for that overcluttered brain of his.  Yet once on the trail, the verdant scenery couldn’t be more calming and peaceful, enraptured by the sound of babbling brooks, where there’s a reason people visit these places, as it’s like a religious experience cleansing the soul.  Dad always takes the lead, like a military reconnaissance mission, with Sam a short distance behind, while Matt always brings up the rear.  It’s not your typical adventure, with a designated place in mind, instead it simply allows the wind and forest sounds to seep into their consciousness, changing up the landscape, altering the routines, discovering the beauty of the great outdoors.  Of course, there are other things that stand out, like not disturbing the environment, or attracting bears, so it’s important to bury waste products and keep all food covered, things Sam has already learned and does automatically, as respecting the environment they are in is an essential aspect of the journey, maintaining a balance at all times.  Who knew that the greatest risk of all was her own femininity?  They appear to be well-educated campers, so when they set up camp for the night, it comes as a surprise when three other male hikers stop to camp right next to them, taking advantage of the shared company.  This may not be what everyone desires, as who likes to feel crowded in the open terrain of the wilderness, but no one makes a fuss.  However, any male threat they pose to Sam, who suddenly finds herself overwhelmed and completely ignored by a sea of masculinity, is immediately overlooked in the interest of getting along and having a good time. 

While the lush beauty and contemplative atmosphere are the real highlight, what stands out is that Sam, who can be sullen at times, is wise beyond her years, seemingly acting more adult than the adults, where she actually says the least, yet her character stands out the most, assuredly connecting with her inner self, confidently saying so much largely through facial expressions, as she does not miss much, ultimately becoming the heart of the movie.  Being female and gay, her life is radically different from these two adult men whose lives are constantly in turmoil, thinking only of themselves, having little time for her, which this film makes very apparent.  Matt is something of an unfiltered chatterbox, but his emotions are raw, out there and exposed, coming up with the weirdest things to say, some of which is easily ignored, while other things can stick with you.  Chris is more tightly wound and reserved, used to managing his emotions and keeping them in check, yet it’s clear he loves and respects his daughter, but his measured tone can feel awkwardly stiff, like he’s playing a role, hiding what he really feels deep inside.  Both men have been deeply wounded by marriage and divorce, something that tore a hole in them, with frustrations literally seeping out of them, where this trip is an attempt to heal those open wounds.  There’s a delicate progression to the film, as the characters come to life, personalities are revealed, with viewers rewarded by glorious waterfalls and some magnificent vistas overlooking a glistening blue lake down below.  Their habits become known to us, with Sam being the responsible “good one,” actually preparing the meals, while also seen cleaning the cooking utensils by rubbing dirt in the bowls, as water is a precious commodity, used sparingly.  There is no cellphone reception deep into the forest, so they are disconnected from the outside world, having only themselves, becoming something of a family unit, with Sam and her dad sharing one tent, while Matt has the other, even bringing foldable chairs to sit on in camp.  There’s a moment that takes us aback, as Matt drunkenly blurts out something that inappropriately crosses a line, with Sam doing a doubletake, not at all amused, shocked at what she hears, but this happens organically, with no dramatic overtones, yet clearly Sam is offended.  The next day when she tries to tell her dad about it, he tries to minimize her outrage, hoping to lessen the impact, telling her to suck it up and not ruin the trip, but his apathy only makes things worse, as the damage has been done, and the floodgates have been opened.  It couldn’t be more quietly devastating, but Sam’s behavior afterwards reveals everything, telling us all that we need to know without any words being spoken.  The subtlety on display is impressive, carving out its own path, but the drama, what little there is, is more about the power of observation, allowing each individual viewer to come to their own conclusions, with an abrupt ending that really has no resolution, but exudes in the power of silence.  Shot in just 12 days by Wilson Cameron, a former visual effects producer, where the rhythm of the film is unwavering, capturing the beauty of the forest, with close-up shots of plants and insects, along with some interesting rock formations, and more than a few unexpected surprises, accompanied by an original score by Celia Hollander that never intrudes, but its ethereal presence is felt throughout.  In the end credits, special thanks are given to indie staples David Gordon Green and Larry Fessenden.