Jay Kelly’s a star, no doubt about it. But does stardom translate into anything meaningful? Jay decides to find out while taking his entourage on a chaotic trip through Europe. Some R-rated language mars this bit of Netflix Oscar-bait, but the movie comes with powerful messages about what we love—and what we should.
When Jay Kelly was just a regular ol’ guy dreaming of making it big someday, his college drama teacher told him that being a full-blown movie star is hard work—harder than you might imagine. Actors? They play the part and go home. But stars? The professor said that stars must act twice: “Once when you play the part, and again when you play yourself.”
Well, Jay Kelly became that star—Hollywood’s last great movie star, some say. For decades, he’s played the leading man, charming audiences with his carbon-cool eyes and gentle smile. Cinephiles utter his name in the same breath of Hollywood royalty. Cary Grant. Paul Newman. Jay Kelly.
Jay Kelly. It’s a role that Jay was born to play. He planned on playing it for years to come—in movies, during dinner parties, with fans, friends and family. But lately he’s wondered: Has he been reading the part all wrong?
Maybe it’s because his youngest daughter, Daisy, will be bolting for college soon. And instead of spending her last two weeks of freedom with her dear old dad, she plans on touring Europe with her friends.
Maybe it’s because Peter Schneider, the legendary director who gave Jay his first big break, just died. Death always feels like an affront, someone quips, “especially in L.A.”
Or maybe it’s because after Peter’s funeral, Jay ran into an old friend.
Friend? No, not friend. After a few drinks with Timothy, Jay can see they’re not friends. At least, Timothy wouldn’t consider them so. When Jay got his big break, Timothy was the one who broke. It was supposed to be his part, not Jay’s. Jay was just there to lend a little moral support at tryouts, not steal the role. And Timothy hasn’t forgiven Jay. Not by a longshot.
“Is there a person in there?” Timothy asks, poking Jay in the chest. “Maybe you don’t actually exist.”
One barfight and black eye later, Jay questions whether Timothy might be right. Forget the next film: Jay wants to go to Europe to hang out with his daughter. Maybe Daisy will even attend an Italian tribute being thrown in his honor. The fete could prove to her—and maybe to Jay himself—that his time as a movie star has been time well spent.
Does Daisy know he’s coming? Nope, but that’s a bridge Jay will cross later. For now, the most important thing for Jay is to get back to basics. Get in touch with himself. Spend time with real people.
I mean, real people besides his publicist, bodyguard, makeup artist, intern and, oh yes, Ron—Jay’s devoted, longsuffering manager. They’ll all be coming along, too, of course. Can’t get back to basics without them.
Honestly, Jay Kelly (played by George Clooney) seems like a nice enough guy. He’s courteous to his fans and dedicated to his craft. But he is, as Clooney told Tudum Magazine, “kind of an infant.”
Who cares for this little infant? His caretakers. “Our love isn’t conditional,” says Liz, Jay’s publicist. “We’re like parents. Or like imaginary friends.” For decades, she and Ron have cared for their well-moneyed client—helping Jay soldier through rough patches and nervous breakdowns. They’ve often done so at great personal sacrifice, too. When Jay decides he’d like to go to Europe, for instance, Ron’s forced to drop out of a tennis tournament with his daughter. At first, Ron tries to try to talk Jay out of the trip, but he finally agrees to accompany Jay throughout the whole difficult trip.
Yes, we can quibble with Ron’s priorities. We could say Ron should stay home with his family and force Jay to grow up a little. But Ron’s devotion isn’t just that of a professional manager: It’s that of a friend. And there’s something to be said for that.
Jay’s trip through France and Italy becomes a sometimes-painful education for both of them. Ron learns his limits. Jay learns about himself. And as the movie heads toward its bittersweet climax, the two clasp each other’s hands, almost as brothers.
A child explains the nature of ghosts to a frazzled parent: “Ghosts are the spirits of dead people who come back [because] they have unfinished business,” he says. It points to the movie’s more metaphorical ghosts. Jay is haunted by “ghosts” of his past, and—given his own unfinished business—he may be doing his share of haunting. (It’s perhaps no accident that he spends much of the movie decked out in white.)
We hear from an atheist who, nevertheless, “supports the established church.” He explains that he likes everything about church except for the God part. A critical scene takes place in a cemetery, and a statue of Jesus stands in the midst of it.
In a flashback, Jay and an actress, Daphne, film a romantic scene in bed together—fully aware of the ridiculousness of engaging in an act of intimacy with 20 or 30 people watching and directing the scene. Both Jay and his lingerie-clad “partner” laugh about how awkward and awful it is. But there’s real romantic tension between Jay and Daphne, even though Jay recalls that he was married to someone else at the time. Jay and Daphne used a child actor as an excuse to hang out together, playing cards with the kid so that their time together looked innocent. But Jay does suggest that he and Daphne had an affair later.
We hear about Jay’s multiple divorces, and Jay himself talks about his difficult relationship with one of his ex-wives (the mother of his first daughter, Jess).
Daisy apparently meets a beau during her European adventure: Jay spies on them as they sit closely with one another, touching hands and giggling. Daisy—who, as you’ll recall, has not entered college yet—aims to travel with her new boyfriend in Europe and suggests that she may skip college altogether, in part to be with him.
Jay and Peter make a salad together. They call each other “dear” and “my love” as they work (Peter is especially free with his terms of endearment), but the relationship appears to be platonic, the terms just an inside joke. (Peter also has a son, who speaks at Peter’s funeral.)
In flashback, a young Jay and Timothy read for a part that contains sensual references to women the character would like to sleep with. A woman kisses a married man. We learn a potential engagement was ruined because of Jay.
Jay gets into a fistfight with Timothy off camera. Jay sports a black eye for the rest of the film, and Timothy apparently suffers a minor injury, too.
Jay tackles and wrestles with another man: The fight leaves both ruffled but essentially unharmed—though in the process, the makeup covering Jay’s black eye is rubbed off, making bystanders believe that the injury was received during this fight.
Jay Kelly opens with a movie scene—one in which Jay’s unnamed character is dying from an apparent gunshot wound. “I don’t want to be here anymore, Jerry,” he says to, apparently, his dog. “I want to leave the party.”
About 30 f-words and 10 s-words. We also hear “a–,” “b–ch,” “h—,” “p-ssed” and the British profanity “bloody.” God’s name is misused five times, and Jesus’ name is abused twice.
When Jay and Timothy meet after Peter’s funeral, Jay suggests the two of them grab some drinks at a local dive they used to go to. Ron tells Jay to go easy: “Stick to beer,” the manager says. In the next scene, Jay appears to be drinking a glass of whiskey.
Characters drink wine and champagne at dinner. People are served champagne elsewhere, as well. Someone tells Jay that Jay’s father has had too much to drink. Jay seems to drink heavily during a dance held in his honor.
A character smokes a cigar.
Jay’s father collapses after having “too much to drink.” Jay rushes to see if his dad’s OK: The older Kelly is sitting up, recovering. When Jay spies a red stain on his dad’s shirt, he asks, “Is that blood?” But no, it’s apparently tomato sauce. It’s not clear whether Mr. Kelly spit it up or simply spilled it.
One of Jay’s assistants is somehow able to track the credit card activity of one of Daisy’s friends. Jay uses the information to track Daisy’s progress through Europe and decide where he and his entourage should head next.
Ron’s daughter suffers from recurring foot-swelling issues—apparently at least partly related to stress. Jay Kelly and his handlers do a great deal to keep Jay’s appearances up, including using a Sharpie marker to darken his eyebrows.
At Peter Schneider’s funeral, Peter’s son tells the congregants his father’s last words. “I know how the movie ends,” the great director said. “It’s about love.”
Jay Kelly is all about love: Yes, a love of Hollywood. Sure, a love of its stars. But it also tells us that that sort of love is like a shadow, a ghost. Jay Kelly instead wants to remind us of greater, more tangible loves in our lives.
The film comes with the old-fashioned sheen of Hollywood glamour. Pictures of Tinseltown titans are tacked to walls. Jay namechecks plenty himself—as if he is trying to convince himself that he belongs. A 30-foot picture of a younger Jay hangs above a crowd—a black-and-white shot with Jay’s hair slicked back, as if he might hang out with Clark Gable or Marlon Brando after the shoot. Even the closing credits, accompanied by an orchestral score, echo days gone by.
Alas, the movie’s not all old-fashioned elegance. Its propensity for foul language is a product of our time, not the scrubbed-clean past. Plenty of characters make poor decisions. The film echoes stereotypical Hollywood mores, not those of stereotypical Midwest America. (I’m pretty sure that if I had announced I was going to travel through Europe with a just-met girlfriend, the first words out of my mom’s mouth would have been, “Over my dead body.”)
But Jay’s Quixotic quest for connection and redemption feels poignant and powerful. And for all its old-Hollywood panache, it intentionally whittles down its own mythos in search of meaning.
It’s about love, Peter said. We may say we “love” movies—those flickering images we watch as we sit before a towering screen—but those transient treasures pale to the love we have, or should have, for the people sitting next to us.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
