Venice welcomed back festival frequent flyers George Clooney and Noah Baumbach on Thursday night, giving Baumbach’s Jay Kelly a joyous, 10-minute-long standing ovation at its in-competition world premiere.
Clooney plays the titular role in Jay Kelly in a performance Baumbach tailor-made for him: Starring as world-famous actor who has a late-career crisis, and sets off on a cross-country European trip, accompanied by his much-maligned, but fiercely loyal manager, played by Adam Sandler.
The Hollywood Reporter‘s lead critic David Rooney gave Jay Kelly a mixed review, admitting the film is “at times witty and entertaining” but saying it is “mid-tier Baumbach at best.” Rooney was full of praise for Sandler, however, noting his subtle turn as Jay Kelly’s manager Ron Sukenick, “creates an intimacy that Jay Kelly seldom nails with its title character.”
Much of the applause Thursday night, however, was for Clooney, who proved again that he’s Hollywood’s consummate professional by fighting back illness to make the red carpet for the world premiere.
Until he strolled across the carpet, arm in arm with his wife, Amal Clooney, to enter Venice’s Sala Grande Thursday night, it was unclear whether Clooney would make it. He is in town to promote the Noah Baumbach-directed dramedy — in which he plays the titular character, a very George Clooney-esque movie star in the midst of a personal crisis — but pulled out of press and media commitments over the first two days of the festival due to a bad sinus infection.
Clooney missed the Jay Kelly press conference earlier today and cut short some media commitments on Wednesday. He also reportedly bailed on a swanky private dinner with Baumbach and fellow cast members.
“Even movie stars get sick,” Baumbach quipped, commenting on Clooney’s no-show at the press conference.
The film was co-written by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer, who has a small role as Jay Kelly’s stylist.
Jay Kelly is screening in competition in Venice, one of three competition titles from Netflix, and is being positioned by the streamer as a major awards play, with both Clooney and Sandler expected to get Oscar-season pushes for their performances.
Alongside Baumbach, Sandler and co-stars Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, and Emily Mortimer, Clooney was joined on the Venice carpet by his agent, CAA power rep Bryan Lourd.