Jay Kelly

Jay Kelly is one of the movies that slipped through my fingers last year but we are getting to it before Oscar nominations so it's a win I guess. I am a fan of Adam Sandler as a person but not as much as an actor and I never understood the fascination with George Clooney so I didn’t have a strong inclination toward this movie. That said, it was on the to do list so here we go.

The quiet chaos of the opening was fantastic, moving through this film set and hearing as much as we’re seeing. It's beautiful. That moment backstage right before the show starts, it feels just like live theatre.

George Clooney is essentially playing a pompous fictionalized version of himself. An older A-lister who is so enmeshed in the industry that he doesn’t have a life outside of it.

“All my memories are movies”

Also Greta Gerwig is in this and it's making me happy. The movie is obviously about Jay but Adam Sandler plays his manager and he is getting a fair amount of screen time as well.

Jay has decided to follow his daughter and her friends as they wander aimlessly around Europe. And he has this scene on the train where he recites the names of famous male actors and he adds his name. It's a very specific kind of affirmation and he’s saying what he wants but he’s saying it like he knows he’s achieved it and he regrets it.

He is forced to look back on his life and career and realize just how many things he screwed up by being “Jay Kelly”. His desperate attempt to connect with his daughter is leading to a fight about her wanting to be an actor. And then his daughter finds out that he basically stalked her to get there.

There is a past between Jay’s publicist and his manager. Even though his manager has a wife and kids. Ron is a whole character on his own. He’s a good dad, he’s a good friend, but he’s got this little bit of longing in him. He’s got this little fleeting moment of “what it” with this publicist and it's a perfect contrast to Jay’s story. Jay has a lot of regrets and he ended up lonely surrounded by people, with no family that cares about him. And Ron doesn’t have regrets, just wonderings and he is loved by his family.

The film may be titled Jay Kelly, but the story is really about Jay and Ron. Ron serves as kind of the other side of the coin from Jay. They are both very career focused, in fact Jay is so work focused that he pulls Ron in and is the source of a lot of Ron’s regrets.

Jay clearly has a very complicated relationship with his dad. His dad is very dismissive, belittling, someone who thinks that acting isn’t a real career. He seems very bitter that Jay chose to be an actor and even more bitter that he was successful at it.

Ron and his career kind of rides on Jay wanting to continue to have a career. And at the moment it doesn’t seem like that is going to happen. Jay seems entirely content with going out on top and retiring.

This tribute had to be a little trippy for George Clooney because they actually have decades of work to use. He had to actually watch his career unfold in front of him. I can’t imagine the emotions that come with that. Seeing the people that he has actually affected by his acting in the faces of the people that appreciate his work.

The ending was powerful and emotional and I unfortunately still don’t think it's enough to win it an Oscar but the back third was the best part of the movie.

I think this is easily the kind of film that would get Oscar attention. The talent is too high caliber for them to not at least acknowledge it. But I don’t think it's likely to win anything. It was a good movie, but some of the brilliance that has been released this year is next level. This film was easily an 8/10. It was a great and pretty thorough character study, but the films that are going to get all kinds of Oscar attention this year have magic in them.