Noah Baumbach doesn't love L.A. But in 'Jay Kelly' and other films, he is fascinated by it

George Clooney plays the rubric quality successful Netflix’s “Jay Kelly,” a Clooney-esque movie prima who is seemingly connected apical of the satellite — but is, successful fact, astatine a crossroads. He’s finished his latest movie and is astatine a constituent successful his vocation wherever he’s begun to interest that each task could beryllium his last. His anticipation to walk the summertime with his youngest daughter, Daisy, is squashed erstwhile helium realizes she’s acceptable to question successful Europe earlier heading disconnected to assemblage successful the fall. (Jessica, Jay’s eldest daughter, hardly speaks to him.) His mentor, a British manager who formed him successful his archetypal movie, has precocious died; connected apical of the looming consciousness of mortality is the guilt Jay feels for not attaching his sanction to the director’s last task successful bid to get the financing. And aft the funeral, Jay runs into the erstwhile person who brought him to that fateful audition arsenic affectional enactment — and who remains bitter that Jay got the relation and “stole his life.”

Instead of sitting down to process these conflicts, Jay decides to tally distant from them, dropping retired of his adjacent movie to travel Daisy to Europe. His nonrecreational entourage — a radical that includes his longtime manager and person Ron (Adam Sandler) and his no-nonsense publicist Liz (Laura Dern) — instantly springs into action, accompanying Jay connected a chaotic travel abroad, with the last halt being an Italian movie festival wherever Jay is acceptable to person a vocation accomplishment award.

“I did person an thought of an histrion having a situation of immoderate sort, and it would beryllium a travel guardant and backward astatine the aforesaid time,” says writer-director Noah Baumbach of the spark that yet became “Jay Kelly.” As Jay flees Hollywood, the metropolis and its radical proceed to haunt him. Visions of himself arsenic a young histrion interval successful and retired of his caput arsenic helium recognizes the mistakes helium made by screwing implicit his person and neglecting his older daughter. But nary substance wherever helium goes — adjacent connected committee a crowded bid from Paris to Tuscany — he’s instantly recognized arsenic the A-list prima that helium is. Jay Kelly cannot flight himself nary substance however hard helium tries.

Laura Dern, George Clooney and Adam Sandler successful “Jay Kelly.”

(Peter Mountain / Netflix)

Baumbach wrote “Jay Kelly” with British histrion and screenwriter Emily Mortimer, who besides appears successful the movie arsenic Jay’s go-to constitution artist: “It truly wasn’t until I brought Emily into it that it started to signifier itself much into the movie you see,” Baumbach says.

One mightiness presume that the pair’s years successful the concern (now successful their 50s, Baumbach and Mortimer some got their commencement successful the mid-1990s) informed their depiction of fame and stardom, but Baumbach is adamant that helium didn’t acceptable retired to constitute a satire of their industry. “As Emily and I were focusing connected the characters and the story, meaning started to uncover itself,” helium explains. “Part of our occupation is to beryllium unfastened and alert of that.”

It tracks that a megastar similar Jay would beryllium surrounded by a close-knit ellipse of radical managing his life, which led to Baumbach and Mortimer exploring those analyzable relationships. One cardinal storyline is the relationship betwixt Jay and Ron, who person worked unneurotic for decades. Despite his devotion to his woman and kids, Ron’s apical nonrecreational precedence is Jay, and the inherently transactional quality of their narration is simply a struggle that dilatory bubbles up to the surface. There’s simply nary getting astir the information that the idiosyncratic Jay is the closest to is besides idiosyncratic who takes 15% of his earnings.

Filmmaker Noah Baumbach.

(Sela Shiloni / For The Times)

It’s an awkward concern that galore who enactment successful the amusement manufacture volition admit — but it’s besides a humorous truth, the benignant that underscores each of Baumbach’s films. “Jay Kelly” isn’t his archetypal movie set, astatine slightest successful part, successful Los Angeles. In “Greenberg,” Ben Stiller’s rubric quality is simply a cantankerous and neurotic New Yorker who has fled westbound aft a tense breakdown. In the autobiographical “Marriage Story,” Adam Driver’s Charlie, a New York-based theatre director, finds himself trapped successful L.A. during his divorcement from his histrion wife, Nicole (Scarlett Johansson).

Baumbach, a Brooklyn native, calls his narration with Los Angeles complex. “It’s a spot I don’t ever emotion being in,” helium says — a spot of an understatement. But he’s much fascinated than repulsed by the city. “I was ne'er drawn to beryllium satirical astir it. I deliberation it’s specified an interesting, unusual place. [My films that] instrumentality spot present bash truthful for a reason. With ‘Greenberg,’ L.A. is simply a metaphor for loneliness. In ‘Marriage Story,’ Charlie is forced to combat for a location extracurricular of wherever helium feels his location is.” And astatine the extremity of the day, wherever other could a prima similar Jay reside? “I mean, Jay Kelly couldn’t person lived successful New York, right?”

There is, of course, amusement business, an manufacture that values make-believe and vanity and couldn’t perchance beryllium anyplace else. “Ron has the line, ‘Death is truthful surprising, peculiarly successful L.A.,’” Baumbach says, reciting Sandler’s dialog from aboriginal successful the film. “[These characters are] surviving successful a spot that, for the astir part, doesn’t alteration — and that helps enactment the corporate illusion that we’re each going to unrecorded forever.”

Jay Kelly mightiness not, but the movies will.