It seems there is a never-ending thirst amongst film makers to make movies about making movies. Lots of these are just not as interesting as they think they are to people who do not spend their lives making movies, but there have been some exceptions. I enjoyed Jay Kelly – George Clooney plays a movie star who finds himself with all the money and success in the world but limited contact with his family, few real friends and lopsided relationships with those surrounding him, such as his manager (Adam Sandler). While I left the film feeling that director Noah Baumbach could have pushed a little further into Kelly’s inner demons, there was certainly something beneath the surface there that makes me want to watch it again.
There certainly is something beneath the surface in Nicholas Britell’s fine score. He is a composer who thinks very deeply about his music and what it will do – often playing with ideas that provide him with intellectual satisfaction but which most members of the audience would never even notice (and I really appreciate that). In Jay Kelly, his big trick (which I would have remained blissfully unaware of had it not been pointed out in PR material when the film was released) was playing his main theme in reverse when Clooney’s character is remembering people and moments from his past – a way of musically enforcing a kind of introspection, it’s a very nice idea.
The theme itself is set with a kind of Hollywood golden age glow, though it’s more George Gershwin or Cole Porter than Max Steiner or Alfred Newman. It’s a really catchy melody, set in so many different ways during the 55-minute album – bouncy orchestral versions, quietly contemplative ones, everything in between. In every case, it’s beautiful, and because it’s presented in such a myriad of different ways it never outstays its welcome despite appearing so often.
Its reversed version also appears a fair few times, these usually taking on a more reflective, more intimate feel. Interestingly, Britell makes use of a felt piano throughout the score – literally a piece of felt placed between the hammer and the strings – which has such a soft sound, combined with the unusually warm-sounding strings creating a great Hollywood gloss over everything.
One of my favourite versions of it is one of the earliest – in “Picture Wrap and Jay Kelly Theme” it teems with so much life, the orchestration so boisterous and playful – and then over the course of the score Britell gradually dials that side down and increases the introspection. Several different versions are heard after the end credits piece – the concluding arrangement for string orchestra is particularly good, and there is a real elegance to the quintet version.
Sandler’s character gets his own theme too, closely related to the main theme (an expression of the kind of symbiotic relationship between the two characters) and while heard less frequently it also makes its mark, particularly the very emotional arrangement in “Crying in Italy”. The melancholy in the all-too-brief “Jay and Ron” is also really quite touching. The standalone piece “The Forest” is another emotional moment, with us hearing a standard piano for the first time, as if a weight has been lifted; this is fleeting however, because in the next cue (“Dressing for the Tribute”) the felt piano returns, the feeling of reconciliation gone again. Then after this comes the outrageously unbridled celebration of “The Tribute”, a soaring and exuberant orchestral piece which plays as Clooney’s character watches a montage of scenes from his (in fact Clooney’s) past triumphs.
I opened this by saying there was something beneath the surface of the film, and that is even more true of the music. Britell has managed to write something which is deeply satisfying even at surface-level, and it doesn’t take too much exploration to note just how much he has going on underneath: an inner turmoil dressed up in outward glitz, it’s really very clever stuff. And it’s clever stuff wrapped up in music that is always melodic, often cheerful, often moving, full of elegance and charm – perhaps the talented composer’s most impressive movie score so far.
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