“Family Should Be More Important than Fame”
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What You Need To Know:
JAY KELLY has many heart-rending, redemptive and morally uplifting moments. Besides wonderful humor, the movie has scenes reminiscent of great directors like Fellini. Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, the movie is a powerful insight into the vacuousness of fame. However, the movie is too long and has too many obscenities and profanities. So, MOVIEGUIDE® rates JAY KELLY unacceptable.
Content:
Strong Christian and redemptive worldview (somewhat allegorical or metaphorical), with strong moral, pro-family elements, where dialogue in one scene mentions the idea of having an epiphany (an insight or appearance or manifestation of God or from God), accompanied by the image of Jesus on the Cross, and where the story and characters show that life is meaningless if you live it without other people and especially without family and that, if you live life selfishly and/or seek only fame, then you won’t be fulfilled by the end of your life, but this positive content is mitigated by lots of gratuitous crude and profane language, plus there’s mention of a guru and a reference to Buddha;
At least 46 obscenities (including at least 31 “f” words), three strong profanities using the name of Jesus Christ in some fashion, and four light profanities;
Two rivals get into a fight with one man getting a black eye, but the other man getting a broken nose and more injuries, title character jumps off a train and chases down a bicyclist who stole a woman’s purse;
No sex scenes, though a married woman kisses a married man but it’s not reciprocated;
No nudity;
Some alcohol use;
Smoking and there’s a mention of crack; and,
Strong miscellaneous immorality includes lying and title character habitually alienates family members, friends, colleagues, and employees.
More Detail:
The movie starts with Jay finishing a movie and going home to tell one of his daughters that he’d like to spend the weekend talking with her since she’s going off to college. She says she can’t because she’s going to Paris for a jazz concert, then down to Tuscany in Italy. Jay says he’ll be all alone, but just then one of his many servants brings him a drink. Thus, ironically, Jay is never really, truly alone.
Jay tells Ron, his manager played by Adam Sandler, he wants to go to Paris and actually follow his daughter’s trip. Ron says he’s supposed to start another movie next Monday. Jay tells Ron to get his plane and his retinue to fly to Paris to go to the jazz concert.
Before leaving for Paris, Jay meets a failed actor he knew when he was in acting school. The actor invites him to have coffee with him afterwards in the parking lot. The actor says he hates Jay because Jay stole his part, and he comes after Jay to fight with him. Jay gets a black eye. The movie doesn’t show Jay getting the black eye, but it later reveals that the other actor is suing for millions of dollars because Jay broke his nose and hurt him badly. If this fight leaks into the press, it will hurt Jay’s reputation.
However, when Jay and Ron get to Paris, they find out his daughter and boyfriend have decided not to visit Paris but to travel straight to Tuscany. Jay once had rejected an offer of a lifetime movie award at the Tuscan Film Society, but now he wants the award. When Jay rejected the award at the Tuscan Film Society, Ron gave it to one of his other clients, a lesser star.
Ron moves heaven and earth to get Jay back on the program. He also moves heaven and earth to get Jay and his retinue from Paris to Tuscany. However, this is the height of the French vacation season, so they don’t have first class compartments on the train. Everyone thinks Jay’s going to go crazy. Instead, Jay wins over all the people in the crowded train compartment.
When Jay’s daughter sees him on the train, she’s shocked because she’s necking with her boyfriend in the dining car. She finds out Jay is tracking her through her friend’s mother’s credit card. She is very angry with Jay and her friend.
On the train to Tuscany, a bicyclist goes bonkers and steals a woman’s purse. Jay jumps off the train and chases the bicyclist into a cemetery with several gravestones and a typical Italian Jesus crucifix memorial.
Later, at the dinner for Jay at the Tuscan Film Society, everybody starts looking at their cell phones. We assume it was about the fight in Los Angeles, but it’s actually about Jay’s heroic recovery of the purse.
As all these events are happening, more and more of Jay’s retinue abandon him. Finally, Ron also quits.
Is this the end of Jay Kelly? Suddenly, he’s beset by sad memories of his past where he alienated his other daughter and destroyed his marriage and friendships.
Will Jay recover? Will he get the award?
JAY KELLY has many heart-rending moments. Besides wonderful humor, there are scenes in the movie reminiscent of great directors such as Federico Fellini. There’s even a scene reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman. Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, who’s a very good writer and director, the movie is a powerful insight into the vacuousness of fame. Jay even tells his oldest daughter that, when her mother divorced him when his daughter was very young, he had a choice between her and stardom, but he chose stardom. When he achieved stardom, he needed to keep it. Despite all the pain Jay’s inflicted, the end of JAY KELLY is uplifting and emotionally satisfying.
Regrettably, though, JAY KELLY has a tremendous amount of profanities in the movie, often using Jesus’s name. This is unnecessary and strange because of the movie’s clear redemptive elements, including the fight in the cemetery.
When I talked to Noah Baumbach, he was overjoyed when I mentioned that God was blessing him. In the midst of the crowd George Clooney came up to talk to me. My daughter explained that often in interviews stars in Hollywood, even the nicest ones, use foul language.
In spite of how good JAY KELLY the movie is, its excessive foul language relegates its acceptability to a Minus 3 unacceptability rating. Hollywood needs to understand that the vast majority of people, including moviegoers, care deeply when they take Jesus’ name in vain.
