{"id":29813,"date":"2025-08-29T01:29:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T01:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/29813\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T01:29:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T01:29:08","slug":"watch-out-for-eve-hewson-in-george-clooneys-cameo-stuffed-new-satire-on-stardom-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/29813\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch out for Eve Hewson in George Clooney\u2019s cameo-stuffed new satire on stardom \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jay Kelly<\/strong> <\/p>\n

\ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d7 \ue9d7<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Director:<\/strong> Noah Baumbach<\/p>\n

Cert:<\/strong> None<\/p>\n

Starring:<\/strong> George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough, Stacy Keach, Jim Broadbent<\/p>\n

Running Time:<\/strong> 2 hrs 12 mins<\/p>\n

George Clooney<\/a> is, in one sense, ideal casting for Noah Baumbach<\/a>\u2019s pondering on late discontents of the American movie star. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a movie where I\u2019m playing myself,\u201d the titular heart-throb actually says. Well, yes. Clooney has, for a few decades, seemed the platonic ideal of the great star. <\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the film, Jay Kelly \u2013 not George Clooney, you understand \u2013 intones his own name alongside those of Clark Gable and Cary Grant. It seems the character really is a successor to those untouchable giants, but, unlike them, Clooney has always been more famous for being a movie star than for being the star of movies. More to do with red carpet, less to do with The Thin Red Line.<\/p>\n

An investigation of that quandary would make an interesting film. Baumbach attempts something more conventional: a satire of how stardom cuts \u201cthe talent\u201d off from reality.<\/p>\n

Many shots are taken at many barn doors. Every time Clooney asserts his ordinariness someone pops up to put a drink in his hand. He travels everywhere with a fleet of cars, each stuffed with desperate underlings. He snorts at the idea of a retrospective award but fumes when it goes instead to a rival.<\/p>\n

The film does indeed reflect how megastardom goes about its business. The script, by the director and Emily Mortimer<\/a>, piles on the irony with admirable diligence. But this is about as cutting-edge as making fun of Donald Trump for being orange.<\/p>\n

All that grumbled about, Jay Kelly, lavishly shot mostly on European locations by Linus Sandgren, offers classy entertainment throughout. We begin with Kelly annoyed that his younger daughter (Grace Edwards) is heading off on holiday weeks before embarking for university. Profiting from an assistant\u2019s online cunning, he learns what spots she is visiting and, unconvincingly claiming mere fortuitousness, turns up on the train the poor girl is taking through France.<\/p>\n

What follows is a picaresque romp that gives decent cameos to a staggering array of actors. Is that Jamie Demetriou, from Stath Lets Flats, as an oddball on a train? It is. Is that Isla Fisher appearing for seconds as someone\u2019s wife? It is. Look out for Eve Hewson<\/a> as Kelly\u2019s first wife in a flashback. I don\u2019t think Alba Rohrwacher, as a film-festival factotum named Alba, is playing herself, but who can be sure?<\/p>\n

\"JayJay Kelly: Eve Hewson in Venice. Photograph: Stefano Rellandini\/AFP\/Getty <\/p>\n

Amid all this chatter and fuss, Adam Sandler<\/a> stands out as Kelly\u2019s loyal manager, the fellow <\/p>\n

who helped him up from nearly nothing, to some, but not nearly enough, thanks from his employer. Like everyone else, he behaves as if minding a very handsome, very rich child. Money engenders compliance.<\/p>\n

Clooney himself does well enough with double takes and raised eyebrows, but there is never any sense of him stretching beyond his stock smoothie. He does not do quite enough to make the film into the 8\u215b or the Stardust Memories it thinks itself to be.<\/p>\n

Still, it passes the time. Returning to Venice International Film Festival<\/a> three years after opening affairs with the unlovely White Noise<\/a>, the director of Marriage Story<\/a> and Frances Ha<\/a> just about gets himself back on track. Just about.<\/p>\n

Jay Kelly will be in cinemas from Friday, November 14th, and on Netflix from Friday, December 5th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jay Kelly \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d7 \ue9d7 Director: Noah Baumbach Cert: None Starring: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[23388,18,23701,117,23700,10232,19,17,23390,11492],"class_list":{"0":"post-29813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-adam-sandler","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-emily-mortimer","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-eve-hewson","13":"tag-george-clooney","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-noah-baumbach","17":"tag-venice-film-festival"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}