Jay Kelly, a 60-something movie star, follows his college-bound daughter to France and Italy when she chooses to travel with friends rather than stay with him. He is responding to the death of Peter Schneider, the director who first discovered him, and to the sense of mortality that prompts him to accept a lifetime-achievement award in Tuscany. He travels with attendants including a manager who has long shaped his career, a publicist, and a hair-and-makeup artist. The film adopts the lead's easygoing, half-smile demeanor, favoring amiable humor and detours over overt melodrama, yet it attains emotional payoff by the end.
But the role and the movie around it feel designed for Clooney anyway, not just in terms of his looks and his age but also in terms of how he seems to move through life, with a no-big-deal half-smile always across his face. The movie has absorbed its actor's vibe. It looks great, and it ambles along pleasantly, rarely veering too far into the dramatic or the emotional;
When he finds out his college-bound daughter, Daisy (Grace Edwards), intends to spend the last two weeks of summer traveling to France and Italy with her friends instead of at home with him, Jay decides at the last minute to follow her to Europe. He's feeling the cold clammy hand of mortality on his shoulder after the death of Peter Schneider (Jim Broadbent), the director who first discovered him.
And besides, a lifetime-achievement award being presented to him in Tuscany makes for a good excuse. Along with Jay comes an entourage of attendants, among them his manager, Ron Sukenick (Adam Sandler); his publicist, Liz (Laura Dern); and his hair and makeup person, Phoebe (Emily Mortimer, who co-wrote the script with Baumbach). Of these, Ron is the one closest to Jay, and he's clearly done everything in his power to help his biggest client rise in the industry and stay there.
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