{"id":2240353,"date":"2026-01-19T04:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T04:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2240353"},"modified":"2026-01-19T04:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T04:48:09","slug":"noah-baumbachs-jay-kelly-a-veteran-film-star-undergoes-a-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/noah-baumbachs-jay-kelly-a-veteran-film-star-undergoes-a-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Noah Baumbach\u2019s\u00a0Jay Kelly: A veteran film star undergoes a crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Directed and co-written by Noah Baumbach,\u00a0Jay Kelly\u00a0is a movie about film stars and filmmaking, featuring George Clooney as one of the former and Adam Sandler as his loyal, long-suffering manager. Their relationship is at the center of the movie. Baumbach satirizes the obvious failings of the contemporary movie industry and mocks the self-involvement of prominent performers.<\/p>\n

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George Clooney in Jay Kelly<\/p>\n

Jay Kelly (Clooney), with decades of a movie career behind him, is finishing one film, with another looming immediately ahead of him. He would like to spend a bit of time with his younger daughter Daisy (Grace Edwards), but she prefers to accompany her friends on a trip to Paris and Italy. He learns from Ron, his manager (Sandler), that his old friend and mentor, British-born director Peter Schneider (Jim Broadbent), whose request for assistance Jay recently turned down, has died. After Schneider\u2019s funeral, Jay runs into an old acting school colleague, Tim (Billy Crudup), who over coffee accuses him of stealing his career. They have a scuffle, which leads to Tim\u2019s filing a lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Jay decides to follow Daisy and friends, skipping out on the new film and leaving for Europe, where he will attempt to kill two birds with one stone by attending a career tribute (in Tuscany) he previously turned down. During the trip, which he cheerfully begins with his entire entourage (with hints of Preston Sturges\u2019 1941 Sullivan\u2019s Travels), Jay is deserted by his publicist, Liz (Laura Dern),\u2014tired of his demands and capriciousness\u2014and her assistant (Nic\u00f4le Lecky) and his hairstylist (Emily Mortimer); fails in his efforts to draw closer to Daisy, as well as his older daughter Jessica, who lives in San Diego; nearly destroys his lengthy association with Ron; proves unable to convince even his own father (Stacy Keach) to attend his tribute; and generally undergoes a significant emotional and career crisis.<\/p>\n

The subject matter is intriguing and important on the whole. Filmmaking has been at the center of cultural and to a certain extent political life in the US for a century. Its vicissitudes reflect the general ups and downs of social life and struggle. One would be pleased to encounter a serious accounting of Hollywood\u2019s recent decades in particular.<\/p>\n

But Baumbach\u2019s treatment is too tepid, too complacent. Not much is fully or convincingly carried through, or nearly fierce and angry enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Baumbach aspires to be an acerbic commentator on certain middle class moods and fads and sentiments, and sometimes succeeds at that, but overall he is too much part of the milieu he criticizes. Too often his films (The Squid and the Whale, 2005;\u00a0Margot at the Wedding<\/a>, 2007; Greenberg<\/a>, 2010;\u00a0Frances Ha<\/a>, 2012;\u00a0While We\u2019re Young, 2014;\u00a0Marriage Story<\/a>, 2019) have been \u201cdamaged by self-satisfaction and self-consciousness.\u201d\u00a0White Noise<\/a>\u00a0(2022), his film adaptation of a Don DeLillo novel, on the other hand, was \u201clively, extravagant,\u201d and removed \u201cBaumbach, at least for a time, from the narrow confines of the not very fruitful or absorbing middle-class introspection \u2026 within which he previously seemed to be enmeshed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jay Kelly\u00a0is not a step forward. It does not explore its territory deeply enough.<\/p>\n

As a critique of Hollywood, the celebrity phenomenon or the entertainment industry generally,\u00a0Jay Kelly\u00a0all but vanishes in the face of\u00a0various Hollywood\u00a0films of the past, including\u00a0What Price Hollywood?,\u00a0Sunset Boulevard, The Bad and the Beautiful,\u00a0The Big Knife,\u00a0A Star is Born, Two Weeks in Another Town, The Sweet Smell of Success, In a Lonely Place\u00a0and many others, including, more recently, The Player.<\/p>\n

Kelly is self-centered but generally amiable. It is not entirely clear what the complaints of Liz and the others are. What, frankly, did she and they expect? She tells Ron, before jumping ship,<\/p>\n

It was different when we were young. It was fun. Jay was our baby. \u2026 Acting out at 60 is a bad look. … He\u2019s behaving like he\u2019s the first person to ever have a nervous breakdown. \u2026 We\u2019re all having nervous breakdowns, Ron.<\/p>\n

Discovering self-centeredness among film personalities, including genuinely talented and appealing figures, hardly breaks new ground. In any event, the individuals in question are not primarily responsible for this condition. Official society encourages and nourishes the egoism for its own purposes. The film and music industries create, market and make money out of prominent figures, by flattering and mythologizing them and serving them up to the public as demi-gods. In so many cases, the process proves disorienting and destructive to the artist him or herself. Hollywood history is full of sad life-stories and tragic fates.<\/p>\n

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Billy Crudup in Jay Kelly<\/p>\n

Moreover, as conditions worsen for tens of millions, as social mobility declines and as real-life opportunities dry up, the need to live vicariously through celebrities\u2014film stars, athletes, supermodels, etc.\u2014grows exponentially.<\/p>\n

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Individual psychological flaws aside, is not such self-centeredness also in part the product of a distorted, one-sided relationship between the artist and his or her audience, between the artist and his or her work, with bourgeois society strenuously encouraging the notion that an important work of art is merely or primarily the result of unique genius or will?<\/p>\n

Unpleasantly, the characters orbiting Kelly feel rather sorry for themselves, including his two daughters, who continue into adulthood to blame him for neglecting them as children. Jessica complains, \u201cDo you know how I know that you didn\u2019t want to spend time with me? Because you didn\u2019t spend time with me.\u201d And later, \u201cSo you think that if I go and I celebrate your career, that your brilliance is gonna make me forgive you?\u201d Please, enough. But Liz, Ron and various others too suffer from serious cases of unbecoming self-pity.<\/p>\n

One of the difficulties is that Baumbach wants to have his cake and eat it too. He would like to indict Jay for his arrogance and obliviousness to others\u2019 difficulties or even\u00a0existence at times but retain him as an amusing and occasionally insightful fellow, capable of laughing at himself. Finding himself traveling by public transportation for the first time in decades, Kelly charms and delights his fellow passengers and ultimately invites them all to his Italian tribute:<\/p>\n

There\u2019s so many people here. I haven\u2019t been on a train in 20 years. \u2026 Everyone is so nice. People are so nice. \u2026 How can I play people when I don\u2019t see people? Don\u2019t touch people?<\/p>\n

Of course, such a personality is possible, but it then removes Kelly from the center of the satire or criticism. As it should, in a certain sense. But what exactly is being held up for the audience to scrutinize? In the end, Jay\u2019s tribute takes place and everyone stands up and cheers heartwarmingly. Again, the cake and eating it too. Without much bite.<\/p>\n

Baumbach largely harps on the secondary or even slighter (and within the existing social relations, inevitable) facts of film-celebrity life. In the end, the industry is mostly let off the hook, along with its products, and one is invited to blame Jay Kelly for his moral and emotional shortcomings. Looking into the camera, he has regrets: \u201cCan I go again? [as in another take.] I\u2019d like another one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ron\u2019s character is a legitimate matter for a film comedy-drama, but it is not worked through to the end. He is subservient and rushes to Jay\u2019s side, as he has done apparently for decades, but abruptly decides to leave his client and friend:<\/p>\n

I was up all last night. \u2026 And I think you have it right. There comes a point when you have to reassess. I love you. I really do. And I appreciate the apology. But I \u2026 I can\u2019t work with you anymore. It\u2019s not good for me.<\/p>\n

And then Ron changes his mind again rather easily. It\u2019s not very strong or convincing.<\/p>\n

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All in all, wouldn\u2019t it have been more interesting if the filmmakers had\u00a0concretely\u00a0examined the movie business during the years in which Clooney has been a leading figure, with its various strengths and weaknesses? Clooney is not the narcissistic Jay Kelly, everyone involved hastens to explain, but that\u2019s not really the issue. Aside from a brief montage of scenes of Clooney\u2019s films (standing in for Kelly\u2019s) shown at the tribute, we learn next to nothing about what the fictional actor has\u00a0actually been doing\u00a0for 30 or 40 years. What were his movies like, what did they do or say, how did they make people feel or think?<\/p>\n

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Laura Dern and Adam Sandler in Jay Kelly<\/p>\n

Daisy\u2019s new French boy-friend, intending to get on her good side or not, asks the girl<\/p>\n

How does it feel to have the hero of so many brilliant films of our time
to be your father? \u2026 Jay Kelly is a hero of cinema.<\/p>\n

This is the\u00a0sum total\u00a0of what we learn. Was Kelly doing significant work? Did it contribute to how people made sense of the world and themselves? Kelly\u2019s successful career is simply taken for granted, without its actual content\u00a0ever\u00a0being looked into.<\/p>\n

But such an exploration\u2014if it were to take up, for example, something like Clooney\u2019s career\u2014might prove challenging, probably unsettling. The past four decades have been the most inadequate in the history of cinema, not the fault of the actor, of course, or any other individual.<\/p>\n

Clooney has been a significant figure in film and television for 40 years, one of its more attractive. He can be comical and sly, self-effacing and down to earth, and, at times, legitimately angry at the way things are. In his weakest films, his characters are smirking and pleased with themselves, infuriatingly \u201cin the know.\u201d<\/p>\n

To date, Clooney has done his most substantive and socially ambitious film work in one 10-year period, from the end of the 1990s to the end of the 2000s. This coincided to a considerable extent with the widespread popular opposition, including within certain middle class layers, to the Bush-Cheney administration. This was the decade of the 9\/11 attacks, the neo-colonial invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the horrific crimes at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the systematic assault, in the name of the \u201cglobal war on terror\u201d and codified through the \u201cPatriot Act\u201d and other sinister pieces of legislation, on democratic-constitutional rights.<\/p>\n

Clooney played a leading role in these films:\u00a0Out of Sight\u00a0(1998),\u00a0The Thin Red Line\u00a0(1998),\u00a0Three Kings\u00a0(1999),\u00a0O Brother, Where Art Thou?\u00a0(2000),\u00a0Welcome to Collinwood\u00a0(2002),\u00a0Solaris\u00a0(2002),\u00a0Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002),\u00a0Intolerable Cruelty\u00a0(2003),\u00a0Good Night, and Good Luck\u00a0(2005),\u00a0Syriana\u00a0(2005),\u00a0The Good German\u00a0(2006), Michael Clayton\u00a0(2007),\u00a0Burn After Reading\u00a0(2008),\u00a0Up in the Air\u00a0(2009) and\u00a0The Men Who Stare at Goats\u00a0(2009).<\/p>\n

The election campaign of Barack Obama brought a considerable portion of the former petty-bourgeois oppositionists back into the fold, from which many have not since strayed.<\/p>\n

To look at this record and this film era honestly and objectively and artistically could be valuable, amusing, dramatic. Unfortunately, Baumbach, with his eye on ostensibly moral issues, family relations and various matters of personal identity hasn\u2019t any apparent interest in the\u00a0particular\u00a0circumstances and evolution of Kelly-Clooney\u2019s career. So the results are poorer, more diluted than they should be.<\/p>\n

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The World Socialist Web Site is the voice of the working class and the leadership of the international socialist movement. We rely entirely on the support of our readers. Please donate today!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.wsws.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Directed and co-written by Noah Baumbach,\u00a0Jay Kelly\u00a0is a movie about film stars and filmmaking, featuring George Clooney as one of the former and Adam Sandler as his loyal, long-suffering manager. Their relationship is at the center of the movie. Baumbach satirizes the obvious failings of the contemporary movie industry and mocks the self-involvement of prominent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2240354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[310567,373549,350478,32720,22860,339940,339946],"class_list":["post-2240353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-adam-sandler","tag-american-cinema","tag-billy-crudup","tag-george-clooney","tag-hollywood","tag-jay-kelly","tag-noah-baumbach"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Noah-Baumbachs-Jay-Kelly-A-veteran-film-star-undergoes-a-crisis.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2240353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2240355,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240353\/revisions\/2240355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2240354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2240353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2240353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2240353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}