I watched the film in which George Clooney delivers the role of his lifetime

Jay Kelly. It sounds like Brad Pitt. Tom Cruise. Johnny Depp. Or George Clooney, who plays him in Noah Baumbach’s new film, currently one of the most watched titles on Netflix. Although that is my first association, in real life Clooney is not all that similar to Kelly, a Hollywood star in his sixties who is reexamining his choices and the personal and emotional toll of fame. For starters, he does not have grown children he neglected for most of his life, and he broke into the industry in a somewhat different way. Still, both the role and the film feel tailor made for him, not only in terms of looks and age, but also in the way his character moves through life, with that familiar, charming half smile that suggests he does not take anything too seriously.

Premiered at the Venice Film Festival, Jay Kelly is essentially a road movie, which at first can feel exhausting, and in fact it is until all the threads start to connect. When he learns that his daughter Daisy (Grace Edwards) plans to spend the last two weeks of summer traveling through France and Italy with friends instead of staying at home with him, Jay decides at the last minute to follow her. The death of the director who first discovered him has made him feel the cold touch of transience, and on top of that, a lifetime achievement award he is set to receive in Tuscany provides the perfect excuse for the trip. Jay is joined by his entire team, led by his manager Ron Sukenick (Adam Sandler) and PR manager Liz (Laura Dern), so although it sounds like the synopsis of a typical comedy, the film is more bitterly witty.

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Somewhere along the journey, from private jets crossing the Atlantic, to Paris, to overcrowded economy class train cars, and finally to chases through Italian landscapes, Jay begins to dig through his memories. He recalls the fight with his older daughter, the actress who enchanted him early in his career, and then his first audition, the one that launched him but also led him to betray a friend. In other words, it is a reckoning in search of an answer to how he went from megafame to megasolitude, surrendering to the identity of this imaginary star who embodies so many aspirations, deceptive dreams, and audience projections, yet is ultimately empty inside.

Nearly 20 years ago, Clooney told Baumbach that he hoped they would one day work together, and Baumbach never forgot it. “Movie stars are our avatars. They are people onto whom we project ourselves and through whom we live,” says Baumbach. “And a movie star had to play a movie star. That was in the DNA of this film: what if a movie star essentially plays himself and reflects back our vulnerabilities and questions about life? What would that mean? I did not know exactly, but it seemed interesting.” Clooney’s namesake character is, of course, fictional, but those overlapping, memoir like layers make the film especially rich.

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There are elements in this script that recall great films, from Birdman to La Grazia by Paolo Sorrentino. I do not think this film will be remembered as a cult classic, but we will certainly remember it for Clooney. His character is not a careless monster. He has good intentions. Ordinary people who find themselves in the same train car clearly adore him, and he is open, pleasant, even heroic at times. Jay is a good man. He likes being loved. That is why the idea that, in the end, he may have denied his people the chance to live their own lives is such a powerful one. Clooney himself emphasizes that this film is not so much about fame as it is about the decisions we make and the way they shape our lives. Is it Clooney or Jay who is crying at the end of the film, which may be the most beautiful scene in the entire movie? That answer is left to us. And yes, I may not think this is the role of his life, as many say, but it is certainly the most vulnerable and most honest of his career.