by Helen Barlow
The combination of George Clooney and Adam Sandler in Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly was always bound to be one of the most covered films at the 82nd Venice Film Festival. And indeed, the paparazzi were following the stars some days ago as they arrived in Venice, Clooney looking glamorous with his wife Amal and Sandler more casually dressed as usual.
Still, Sandler wore a suit for the film’s press conference—but there was no Clooney who had come down with a sinus infection.
In the widely praised heartwarming dramedy, written by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer, Clooney is a famous movie star who has dedicated himself to his career, to the detriment of his family, namely two adult daughters that he rarely sees. Sandler is his manager Ron and essentially his only friend, though unlike Jay, he has managed to make time for his family, his wife (played by Greta Gerwig, Baumbach’s wife) and we see him playing tennis with his adult daughter.
The story follows Jay and Ron embarking on a trip to Europe and ultimately Italy where Jay will receive a career tribute. Jay invites his family in an effort to make amends.
“I’ve always appreciated my manager, my agent, my publicist and I know how hard they work and how difficult it is through my ups and downs to back me up even if I can be a little loud at times,” Sandler says. “But I was very excited to play someone who gives his heart to Jay. People who work with me feel I do the same. If you work hard like all of us do, you’re writing and you lock yourself in a room, but I always try to find time for my family. I try to bring them wherever I go but it can’t happen every time and your heart’s broken, you miss them. But FaceTime is nice too.”
Baumbach recalls becoming very close with Sandler on 2017’s The Meyerowitz Stories, their previous film together. “Adam does have such grace, loyalty, generosity and heart around the people he works with and with his family. He really does make an effort to involve everyone and has found a way to successfully navigate this whole thing and do it so beautifully. It was exciting for me to have him play someone who represents Adam and that generosity of spirit, in the love that he feels for Jay.”
Sandler admits that being in the movie was not about constantly trying to find jokes and laugh moments, as he does with his comedies. “I’ve done two movies with Noah, and I could not be more proud, the feeling it gives you — you lock in, you’re invested, your heart gets broken, you get relief and there’s tension. He knows how to do everything and finds places with all the characters to make you laugh and to feel pain. When you read a script like this, you go, ‘Holy shit, I can’t believe I’m getting this gift.’”
Baumbach wrote the movie for Clooney. “I’ve known George over the years, and I’ve been wanting to find something to do with him,” he explains. “Early on, we said that this is going to be George. In some sense, I felt it was important that the audience watching the movie had a relationship with the actors playing the characters. It’s interesting because the character is running from himself for so much of the movie, deflecting and trying to hide. Essentially, I was asking George to put more of himself, and he does that. I’m not one to get emotional on set, but I really did on this movie.”
Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia, where he re-teams with his regular actor Toni Servillo, opened the festival. Servillo plays an Italian President near the end of his term, who grapples with indecision in granting two potential pardons and in signing a bill legalising euthanasia. Sorrentino admits that he has “a love for the cinema of dilemma”. Regarding euthanasia, he says, “I hope my film can draw attention to a topic which is so important.”
While Servillo starred in Sorrentino’s colourful The Great Beauty and played former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in the director’s Il Divo and former President Silvio Berlusconi in Loro, La Grazia marks his first time playing a fictional leader for Sorrentino. His President Mariano DeSantis is more sombre, more realistic, which not only represents a change, but comments on the way leaders should behave. The film harks back to a time when we could look up to all our world leaders with dignity.
Yorgos Lanthimos premiered the black comedy Bugonia, his fifth film with Emma Stone and second with Jesse Plemons. It focuses on conspiracy theorists and Plemons plays one of them. Together with a fellow conspirator, he abducts Stone’s CEO of a biomedical company as they are convinced she is an alien queen intent on destroying our planet.
“I love the material Yorgos is drawn to and the worlds he wants to explore,” Stone says. She also likes that he uses the same crew, who have become a kind of family. “It’s a safe, comfortable environment.” Stone, a producer on the film, admits that she is a fan of the late astronomer Carl Sagan.
“He very deeply believed that the idea that we’re alone in this vast, expansive universe is a narcissistic thing. So, I’m coming out and saying it, I believe in aliens!”
Deadline calls Bugonia a return to form for Lanthimos after last year’s disappointing Kinds of Kindness, calling it a “dizzying, batshit-crazy story that ranks right up there with the filmmaker’s best films Poor Things, The Favourite, Dogtooth and The Lobster.
Main Photo: Bugonia actors Aidan Delbis, Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone, with director Yorgos Lanthimos. Photo by Giulia Parmigiani
