“Jay Kelly” is unlike anything that Noah Baumbach has worked on so far. His films have been innately conversational, drawing comparisons with works of Woody Allen and Ingmar Bergman for the flavor and richness of their dialogues. Although not chamber dramas, they relied on interior scenes to reveal the sweetest and ugliest aspects of their characters’ psyches. That’s often where people can’t escape their fallibilities, which compels them to come to terms with themselves or others. Hence, the approach didn’t limit his thematic exploration. His script and performances felt self-sufficient. His latest, however, takes a bolder route to chronicle the life of an actor.
The film swings back and forth between different spaces and times, letting any door serve as a portal to the actor’s past or present. This approach feels characteristically Fellini-esque, where a free-flowing structure takes centre stage, much like it did in Federico Fellini’s “8 1/2.” The disorientation, although jarring, seems faithful to its core theme. Fellini used it to convey the cluttered creative process of a director reflecting on his life while struggling to find inspiration for his new work. Baumbach uses it to follow a highly celebrated actor reflecting on his years of pain and glory, as he is about to receive a tributary award honoring his vast body of work. Both films feature retrospectives that focus on the psychological aspects of pivotal moments in the characters’ lives.
Whether Guido Anselmi or Jay Kelly, both find themselves surrounded by admirers who seek something from them. From Guido, many seek an association with the genius, evident by the barrage of requests he receives from those hoping to collaborate with him. Jay’s case is a little different. They seek only the light of his presence as he walks in between them like a beaming sun. They unwittingly validate his years’ worth of work, but their admiration seems pointed at his superstardom. He doesn’t get followed by critics as Guido was, but he still seems just as trapped under the sheer burden of his own legacy.
Guido’s past appears through flickers of his memories featuring all sorts of people he met in his past or summoned with his imagination, vaguely revealing what they all mean to him. Jay’s past appears through surreal detours with his friends and family, but unlike Guido’s visions, they offer a clearer understanding of their interpersonal relationships. Fellini’s film is a journey through Guido’s joys and guilt, seeking a way to a lucid future, but Baumbach’s film takes a different route. His protagonist hopes to come out of the whirlwind for personal, not creative reasons. In that sense, “Jay Kelly” retains some elements that define Baumbach’s films, despite straying away from his usual directorial style.
While focusing on the aspects of Jay’s personal life, Baumbach returns to analyze the complicated nature of modern relationships. In “Marriage Story,” he followed a married couple going through a messy divorce. Anyone walking out of the film can see how Adam Driver’s self-absorbed playwright is behind the eventual falling out of their several years of relationship, letting Scarlett Johansson’s character face the brunt of his impulsive actions. Yet, instead of turning into an uncomplicated affair with clear sides to pick, the script makes us consider the plight of both characters, compelling us to sit with the discomfort plaguing both. Even in the presence of all the reasons to blame one side, it doesn’t become a pedestrian display of marital mudslinging. We get a closer look at the push and pull that couples encounter in such situations.
The rest of Baumbach’s work also features characters that may otherwise be deemed unlikable, and thus, be scrapped off the idea board before moving ahead with the script. We meet them more so in “Greenberg,” “The Squid and the Whale,” and even his debut feature, “Kicking and Screaming.” It’s either the characters that you would be easily put off by their reluctance to change, or their blissful ignorance about a world beyond the cosy bourgeois lives. Baumbach still churns out plenty of dramatic moments through their seemingly trivial battles, while making their casual discoveries reflect the profound truths of how we deal with emotional issues at large. You can say something similar about the middle-aged caucasian protagonist of his new film, who is also an absent father and cheating husband.
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Yet, he doesn’t turn Jay into an easy villain with a magnanimous ego that can crush anyone along his way. He uses Jay as a vessel to get to the bottom of the issues in modern-day familial relationships. Throughout his trip in Europe, Jay receives the love and adoration of his fans. Yet, beneath his smile, we sense a man worn down by his self-created shell. So, Jay’s journey feels one of metamorphosis, at least driven by that desire, where he hopes to shed his past skin to be anew.
That is impossible for someone of his stature. Whether a father, a friend, or a lover in his real life, he would always remain ‘the Jay Kelly.’ There would always be this grand image of his haunting him, reminding him of how it tore apart many of his relationships. He would always be the actor who stole his friend’s idea to ace an audition, leaving him drifting behind without due recognition. He would always be a father who didn’t show up for his daughter the way he should have and distanced himself from difficult conversations. Eventually, he would always be a star who expected his manager to baby him, throwing tantrums almost like a toddler, knowing Ron would be there to keep him satisfied.
Baumbach introduces Jay on a film set, a place where Jay must have spent most of his life. That first scene reveals the weight of Jay’s influence, as the crew moves along as per his wishes. Even the director seems careful about his choice of words around Jay, making sure he doesn’t offend the star in any way. Baumbach makes us feel deeply for this middle-aged man, who’s coming to terms with his weariness and suffering from a bout of remorse. Jay believes he has cracked everything there is to know about life. He prides himself on his emotional intelligence in front of his young daughter, while trying to sustain with her what he can’t mend with Jessica.
Over time, Jay gains wealth, influence, and recognition, everything he must have been hoping for when he took his first steps in his acting class. That, however, doesn’t suffice as he reflects on his legacy. He can’t help but think of every moment he wronged someone. It comes back in flashes after Timothy’s confrontation, leading him to a kaleidoscopic guilt trip. One moment, he is in a train speaking with his vaudevillesque fans, and the very next, he is with Jessica, listening to how he hurt her feelings, how his unruly self-absorption left her without his sheltering comfort.
In his absence, Ron gets sucked into the possibility of a life without his professional obligations. He could have stayed by Lois’ side to care for Vivienne. He could have sought a detour with Liz. Instead, he remains consumed by his undying commitment to Jay. By the end, Jay recognizes Ron’s selfless acts of labor by calling it the only way it would have made any sense. Ron’s friendship becomes the only thread with any hope of reconciliation.
In the film’s final moments, Jay takes a bite of a cheesecake, something he refrained from throughout the post-shoot travels. It doesn’t seem something as plain as an actor cheating on his routine commitment to a regimen, omitting a carb or sugar-heavy diet. That moment cuts a little deeper, since it seemingly ushers in a new beginning for him, at least shows his readiness to turn over a new leaf. At the very end, he looks at a professional retrospective, interrupted by footage of his daughters looking for him. Seeing them, he repeats what he said during the initial shoot. He seeks another take to do it all over again, now that he knows better. Only this time, there won’t be any retakes. For better or worse, he will always be Jay Kelly.
