Jay Kelly

The peculiar thing about Noah Baumbach's Jay Kelly is that it’s an interesting film about which there is little to say —and it’s not because it’s derivative of 8½. George Clooney plays an actor on the way to receiving a tribute for 35 years. It's as if Fellini were playing himself. In another regard the film also recalls Wild Strawberries where the old professor relives all his mistakes and lost lives on the way to an apotheosis. The central conceit here is "the price of everything" to borrow the title of a famous documentary about the monetization of art. The price Jay pays is directly proportional to the degree to which he is willing to forswear his relationships in the service of his Faustian ambition. He's singlehanded in going after what he wants and once he gets it, he only wants more. This is epitomized by the very first take of the movie, where Clooney is on set and he asks the director if they can do the scene once again. Well it's disingenuous to say there's nothing to say. Perhaps it’s better to say it feels like there is nothing to say. Clooney's performance is a tour de force, as is that of Adam Sandler, the Chaplinesque manager who also gives up his life, in this case not for his own art, but in the service of his client's.

read "Double Exposure" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

read The Wormhole Society by Francis Levy

and read The Wormhole Society: The Graphic Novel by Francis Levy and Joseph Silver