"When they catch up over a drink at a dive bar they used to frequent, the energy between them keeps shifting: warm and nostalgic one minute, prickly and combative the next. At one point Jay persuades Timothy to perform his old trick of reading a menu aloud in such a way as to demonstrate his acting range. After taking a moment to find his emotional choice, Timothy delivers a tragicomic ode to truffle Parmesan fries and Brussels sprouts with balsamic glaze,"
"Moments later, the two men are taking swings at each other in the bar parking lot, laying the grounds for a legal dispute that will dog Jay for the rest of the movie as Timothy fades to an off-screen presence. But what stays with me months afterward is the quicksilver surprise of that menu-reading moment, one of the few in Jay Kelly when I couldn't tell where the movie was taking me (and I say that as a moderate if not passionate Jay Kelly fan)."
Billy Crudup appears in a single scene as Timothy, the long-ago roommate and acting-school rival of George Clooney's movie star Jay. The encounter moves between warm nostalgia and prickly combativeness, and Timothy's menu-reading becomes a tragicomic showcase that reveals repressed resentment and acting range. The scene ends with a sobbing salute to iceberg lettuce, followed by a physical altercation that sparks a legal dispute affecting Jay for the remainder of the film. The minimal script and Crudup's emotional choices build a fully realized off-screen presence and provoke lasting curiosity about Timothy's life.
Read at Slate Magazine
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