Jay Kelly: A sublime character study

Jay Kelly (2025) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.14.25

The opening Sylvia Plath quote says it all:

 

“It’s a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It’s much easier to be somebody else, or nobody at all.”

 

Flanked by publicist Liz (Laura Dern, center left) and best friend/handler Ron (Adam
Sandler, center right), Jay Kelly (George Clooney) cheerful interrupts his morning to
sign autographs for adoring fans.

Jay Kelly (George Clooney) has it all: a long and successful film career; a devoted entourage, including best friend and handler Ron Sukenick (Adam Sandler); and the admiration and respect of fans, friends and professional colleagues.

 

He is one with Gary Cooper, Cary Grant and Robert De Niro: shapeshifters and chameleons of identity, with faces that represent something personal to millions.

 

But.

 

Jay’s nature, even when the cameras are off, remains a pose; he has no sense of self. His relationship with daughters Jessica (Riley Keough) and Daisy (Grace Edwards) is strained at best, estranged at worst. They’ve grown up seeing him repeatedly forsake them for the work: another movie, another months-long absence. Their mother and Jay’s other exes are distant memories.

 

He takes Ron for granted, failing to recognize the strain this keeps putting on his family.

 

Jay is selfish … and he’s so far gone, he’s incapable of recognizing this.

 

To be sure, he’s affable, suave and generous with the public; he’s also wheedling and persuasive, and knows how to get his way. After all, he has been doing it for decades. (This is George Clooney, after all; the man exudes charm and savoir faire the way the rest of us breathe.)

 

And yet …

 

Of late, Jay has begun to relive past choices: confronted by ghosts from his past, awakened to the shallowness of his present. And with this rising awareness comes a feeling he can’t quite identify:

 

Regret.

 

This plays out in director Noah Baumbach’s masterfully composed film, which enchants from its initial scene: cinematographer Linus Sandgren’s stunning, single-take tracking shot that follows the set-up and shooting of Jay’s final scene in his new movie, Eight Men from Now. Baumbach’s script, co-written with Emily Mortimer, is a masterful blend of drama, gentle humor, angst and character dynamics, brought to life by richly nuanced performances from Clooney and Sandler. Both are sure bets for Academy Award nominations.

 

(I understand the eyebrow lift. Adam Sandler, in a subtly shaded straight role? Hey, watch this film, then get back to me.)

Gold: 18 karat at best

Gold (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for sexuality, nudity and considerable profanity
By Derrick Bang

This story has more ups and downs than a merry-go-round ... and, like such amusement park attractions, any semblance of an actual destination is mere illusion.

On the triumphant day that his company is admitted to the New York Stock Exchange,
Kenny Wells (Matthew McConaughey, fist raised) jubilantly kicks off the morning trading,
accompanied by girlfriend Kay (Bryce Dallas Howard) and partner Mike Acosta (Edgar
Ramírez, far left).

Gold is inspired, and quite accurately, by the 1997 Bre-X Minerals Ltd. mining and stock fraud, which — in the wake of the company’s collapse — became (and remains) one of Canada’s largest and most embarrassing stock frauds, and history’s largest-ever mining scandal.

And all because “gold fever” blinded far too many people to the most obvious set of checks and balances.

Scripters Patrick Massett and John Zinman have changed names and moved the primary players from Canada to the States. Even so, they follow events closely enough to raise eyebrows over their failure to acknowledge two published accounts of the catastrophe — The Bre-X Fraud and Fool’s Gold: The Making of a Global Market Fraud — that must have served as primary sources.

Matthew McConaughey stars as Kenny Wells, the third-generation face of Washoe Mining, a family business based in Reno, Nev. A prospector at heart, Kenny believes strongly in lineage, and loves to wax eloquent about the grandfather who founded the company with hard work and dirt under his fingers. But the story inevitably sounds rehearsed and greased with a layer of snake oil, particularly when he’s trying to charm investors.

Kenny also supplies occasional off-camera narration to us viewers, to bridge time-shifts and plot gaps, but McConaughey’s voice has the distinct aroma of self-justification. It’s clear, pretty quickly, that Kenny probably isn’t a reliable narrator; he may relate details accurately, but his complicity is open to serious question.

We meet him during a comfortable period, as primary hustler for the company that his father still runs. Daytime work is dominated by telephone pitches and the careful scrutiny of geological surveys; hard-drinking evenings take place in the tavern where Kenny’s longtime girlfriend, Kay (Bryce Dallas Howard), works as a waitress.

They’re an unlikely but comfortably matched couple. She loves him unconditionally, having made peace with his almost religious pursuit of dreams. He, in turn, relies on her stability and support; she grounds him. Decked out in 1980s-style big hair, and poured into the tight outfits with which waitresses have long enhanced their tips, Howard is the pluperfect working gal who adores her man.

The glow in her eyes is palpable, whenever Kenny is around: We hope that he’ll never abuse her loyalty.

Truth: None to be found

Truth (2015) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.30.15

This film is quite intriguing, in part because its title reflects great irony: Almost no “truth” emerges here.

Having finally put their investigation to bed, the 60 Minutes team — from left, Lucy Scott
(Elisabeth Moss), Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett), Mike Smith (Topher Grace) and Lt. Col.
Roger Charles (Dennis Quaid) — watch their colleague Dan Rather deliver the story to
TV viewers. Sadly, that won't be the end of it...

Director/scripter James Vanderbilt’s politically charged drama is based on the late 2004 events that later came to be known as “Rathergate”: the CBS 60 Minutes news piece that cast doubt on the details of then-president George W. Bush’s National Guard service.

The questions that initially fueled the journalistic investigation — whether strings had been pulled to get Bush into the Texas Air National Guard, as opposed to service in Vietnam; and whether he had, in fact, honorably completed said National Guard service — quickly were submerged beneath a rising tide of questions regarding the legitimacy of the investigation’s sources and “smoking-gun documentation.”

This script is based on Truth and Duty: The Press, the President and the Privilege of Power, the 2005 book by Mary Mapes, who produced the CBS News piece, but Vanderbilt is an unlikely candidate for such an assignment. His previous résumé is limited to crime dramas and high-octane action epics such as The Amazing Spider-Man and White House Down, and his dialog here too frequently sounds like amateur efforts to imitate Aaron Sorkin or David Mamet.

The performances are robust, and Vanderbilt has done reasonably well with this directing debut; he knows how to guide his actors through their scenes. No question, as well, that this is an important story, and one with lessons to be learned. But the narrative is frequently clumsy, the timeline occasionally confusing, and we’re ultimately left with more questions than answers (which, although almost certainly intentional, is nonetheless irritating).

On top of which, Vanderbilt makes a few glaring rookie mistakes, starting with his opening scene, wherein Mapes (Cate Blanchett) begins an intense first meeting with ... somebody. We’re inclined to assume he’s a shrink; we eventually learn, much later, that he’s a lawyer. Either way, he’s a gimmick that allows Mapes to recount her story while it’s still happening, which is simply daft.

The narrative proper begins in the spring of 2004, just as CBS broadcasts Mapes’ breaking-news story of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse. It’s a moment of triumph — and a piece that would go on to win CBS and Mapes a Peabody Award — but, in the demanding environment of a news studio, just another assignment completed, with many more to go.

If I Stay: Existential angst

If I Stay (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.22.14

We certainly can’t imagine what it would be like, for a soul stalled between life and death — the likely wealth of conflicting emotions at play — but Chloë Grace Moretz makes a persuasive case.

In the aftermath of a horrific accident, Mia (Chloë Grace Moretz) gradually realizes that her
soul remains in limbo, able to watch but not affect the efforts being made to save her
comatose body, which hovers near death in a hospital bed.

As the young star of director R.J. Cutler’s adaptation of Gayle Forman’s enormously popular young adult novel, Moretz is a memorably tragic heroine: engagingly shy and vulnerable, winsomely sweet, undecided in the ways we all remember from our high school years, and then forced to confront a horrific tragedy that, inexplicably, places her in a position to make an almost impossible decision.

The question is the degree to which we get involved with her unusual plight.

Forman’s book is yet another entry in the currently popular sub-genre of “doomed youth” sagas, many recently adapted to the big screen, several of them this year. The current leader of the pack obviously is John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, but we also can point to Tim Tharp’s The Spectacular Now, John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and several books by Nicholas Sparks, among others.

Although this trend seems somewhat masochistic, I suppose enjoying a good cry is a lot healthier than wallowing in a gory slasher flick.

The book has been carefully and sensitively handled by scripter Shauna Cross, who came to our attention after adapting her own novel Derby Girl into 2009’s under-appreciated roller-derby drama, Whip It, which gave Ellen Page a similarly endearing character arc. “If I Stay” has the added benefit of strong casting in all the supporting roles, and I’m sure Cutler had a hand in that, given his position as one of the executive producers of TV’s sharply assembled Nashville.

Moretz’s Mia Hall is a school misfit: a quiet outcast who assigned herself that role, due to a (probably justified) concern that her peers wouldn’t think much of a girl who prefers the cello, Yo-Yo Ma and Beethoven to electric guitar and the gyrations of the newest “it” band. Mia also is something of an anomaly at home: Her father, Denny (Joshua Leonard), was the drummer in a punk band before becoming a teacher; her mother, Kat (Mireille Enos), was the ultimate groupie-turned-wife, who carted Mia to gigs as a toddler and reveres tough rock chicks like Deborah Harry.

And Mia’s little brother, Teddy (Jakob Davies), idolizes Iggy Pop.

Not that anybody in Mia’s family makes her feel like an outsider. Denny and Kat are warm, supportive, tolerant and wise ... frankly, the best parents anybody could imagine. But they don’t look, feel or sound like impossibly ideal archetypes; armed with Cross’ note-perfect dialogue, and assisted by Cutler’s deft direction, Leonard and Enos simply emerge as caring adults who relate to their daughter’s angst because, well, they never quite abandoned their own anti-establishment younger selves.

This story comes armed with several moral imperatives, including this biggie: To thine own self be true. Denny and Kat know this.

Nebraska: A memorable trip

Nebraska (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: R, for profanity and vulgarity
By Derrick Bang

I’ve been waiting 40 years for Bruce Dern to snag this sort of role.

And so, I would imagine, has he.

When David (Will Forte, left) insists on seeing the house where his father Woody (Bruce
Dern, center left) grew up, the building's sad, dilapidated and abandoned state aptly
mirrors Woody's dismay over the lifetime of disappointment that haunts him. Woody's
wife Kate (June Squibb) takes advantage of this excuse to dredge up unpleasant
memories, while David's brother Ross (Bob Odenkirk) warily watches his combative
parents, wondering if they'll flare into another squabble.

The American film industry has no shortage of unsung and underappreciated actors, male and female. Some carve out respectable careers as supporting players: familiar faces who, with their mere presence, immediately raise the quality of a given movie. Jack Warden, George Sanders, Joan Cusack, Shelley Winters and George Kennedy come to mind.

Others work just as hard but never quite achieve name-brand recognition: forever hoping for that one golden shot that’ll make all the difference, usually retiring into obscurity without having had that chance.

Thanks to Nebraska, Dern is one of the lucky ones.

Until now, he has been the stalwart second banana in projects as varied as Smile, The Great Gatsby, All the Pretty Horses and Coming Home, the latter earning him a well-deserved Academy Award nomination. Leading roles have been few, but I’ve never forgotten the intensity of his essentially solo turn in 1972’s Silent Running (a sci-fi entry dismissed as preposterous at the time, which has become more uncomfortably prophetic with every passing year).

Dern brought life not only to his own role in that cautionary tale, but also to the three boxy, robotic “drones” that — thanks to his persuasive performance — developed their own individual personalities. No small feat, decades before CGI magic was even a gleam in anybody’s eye.

Even then, Dern was a master of earnest, heartbreaking passion, imbuing his sad-sack characters with the forever chagrined intensity of the eternally downtrodden and disenfranchised. Men who nonetheless cling to even the faintest hope, no matter how preposterous.

A great work of art doesn’t emerge from an empty canvas, of course; Nebraska also owes its deliciously biting charm to its rich script from newcomer Bob Nelson — a remarkable big-screen debut — and the sensitive, perfectly modulated direction of Alexander Payne, who has delighted us with misfit sagas such as Sideways, Election and The Descendants.

Payne usually writes or collaborates on the scripts for his film; Nebraska marks the first time he has fully surrendered the screenplay chores. But it’s easy to see why; Nelson’s droll premise and mordant execution display the same slow-burn humor and slightly left-of-center sensibilities, while granting us a central character every bit as stubborn, irascible and resolutely unlovable as Jack Nicholson’s title character in Payne’s About Schmidt.

Tone is everything in Payne’s films, and Nebraska could be considered Fargo on downers: somewhat quieter and slower, but every bit as rich with Midwestern quirks and slow-drawlin’ ambiance.