I didn’t love it but I also didn’t hate it. I keep searching for the right word – self-indulgent isn’t it, since George Clooney didn’t write or direct the movie. Director Noah Baumbach (and co-writer with Emily Mortimer) made a deliberate choice in casting Clooney – a real movie star playing a movie star. But he’s obviously not playing himself, since we know so much about Clooney’s life. Or maybe there’s more truth in there than we realize.

The close-ups are disconcerting because the high-def shows every mark on the skin – pockmarks and scars – even when he’s just leaving the film set and before the makeup is removed. He is movie star beautiful but the flaws are there to see also.

I guess I’m trying to see the reason for the movie. It’s not as entertaining as it could be and it’s not as revealing of “movie star life” as it could be. It doesn’t feel as much of a slice of life as The Meyerowitz Stories or Marriage Story maybe because everything is always so bright and sunny or maybe because it’s about someone with more money then we’ll ever see. Or maybe it’s just another story about a divorced father who cannot relate to his children and lets his job interfere with all his relationships.

One bit I did like very much is when Kelly is given a kerchief from the son of a man who died, the person who gave Kelly his first break. His manager, Ron Sukenick (Adam Sandler) says something about it, and Kelly hands it to him. Sukenick ties it around his neck and doesn’t take it off because he saw the kerchief as an important gift that Kelly had given to him in friendship. So Sukenick taking the kerchief off means a lot more to him than it does to Kelly.

The Making of Jay Kelly on Netflix

As I’ve mentioned before, I frequently enjoy process more than I enjoy the completed work.

Watching the technicians, who deserve every accolade they get, creating the sets and the atmosphere for certain shots is amazing. And then there’s the director’s choices and ideas that the technicians make happen. You need the creative on both the director and technician’s side for the ability to create the magic.

There are two instances where Adam Sandler seems to get upset. One instance may be joking, but when director Noah Baumbach asks him to do something differently than he had been doing it and they explain why and Sandler says no one told me this [the reason why they’re following him in the shot is to lead a certain spot which leads to the next scene] before he seems to stamp down his annoyance when he realizes they are filming a behind-the-scenes documentary and the camera is on him. Also you can see that Sandler is much more comfortable playing a role, even if that role is Adam Sandler the actor/comedian. But Clooney is very comfortable in front of crowd – but is he George Clooney or George Clooney the movie star, which is also part of the focus to *Jay Kelly*.

Interestingly, everything about the movie is analog in regards to the sets (no computer tricks) and music (recorded on tape instead of computer) but visually the movie is digital instead of film – it lacks the softness of film. The softness of the Jay Kelly film retrospective at the end of the movie. And despite the “harshness” of the digital, the backgrounds that are not real, look real and not like digital real.