George Clooney was soaked up in an 8.5-minute standing ovation for Noah Bambach’s “Jay Kelly” Venice premiere on Thursday night with sinus infections and storms.
Clooney has been joined by his co-star Adam Sandler. The two main men have performed some of the Hollywood powers in Netflix movies. In “Jay Kelly,” Clooney is an aging movie star, and Sandler is his manager, sacrificing everything in his life for his most precious clients.
As the crowd cheered at the momentum, Clooney leaned down, kissing his wife, Amal, and sat behind him. He embraced Sandler and Bambach through applause. The film ended at 1am during a vicious thunderstorm, as enchanting crowds poured into wet streets soaking in the sea of umbrellas.
Earlier that day, Clooney missed the official film press conference as he recovered from a sinus infection. And on the red carpet, the star attempted to socially distance himself from his co-stars. His co-stars included Laura Dern, Billy Cradup and Riley Kiew. But it lasted for a few minutes as festival fans eagerly waved him, hugging him and kissed him on the cheek. Clooney played together, signed the autograph for a while before taking his seat with ju umpire Alexander Payne.
Clooney portrays the famous movie star (what a Reach!) of the 60s, except for “Jay Kelly.” He faces personal calculations. There he embarks on a journey through Europe by plane, train and car, with his longtime manager (Sandler) as he looks back at his life choices, relationships and heritage. Baumbach wrote the film with Emily Mortimer (“Newsroom”) in her scripted debut. Not everyone could trek to the Lido starry ensembles include Baumbach’s real-life partners Greta Gerwig, Patrick Wilson, Eve Hewson and Isla Fisher.
The film’s catchphrase is that “everyone knows Jay Kelly, but Jay Kelly doesn’t know himself,” and Clooney describes the most “vulnerable” role of his career.
“It’s not so common to find a role like this at my age when you’re an actor in my position,” Clooney told Vanity Fair before the premiere. “If you can’t make peace with aging, you need to get out of business and disappear. I’m funny now when I go after a bad guy – it’s not suspense. It’s fine. I’ll accept all of that.”
Baumbach premiered many films on Lido about the film-making Titan, “White Noise” in 2022, the 2019 Oscar-nominated Marriage Story, and the 2015 documentary “De Palma.” Clooney has also returned to Venice several times over the decades with films like 1998’s “Out Of Sight,” 2005’s “Good Night and Good Luck,” and more recently 2024’s “Wolfs.” Meanwhile, “Jay Kelly” is Sandler’s first Venice Film Festival premiere.
