For eight minutes of "Jay Kelly," Billy Crudup ventures way out of his comfort zone to create some scene-stealing movie magic. And you may never experience a menu the same.
In director Noah Baumbach's dramedy (streaming on Netflix now), George Clooney plays Jay Kelly, an internationally beloved movie icon, while Crudup is Timothy, a child therapist and former friend who was the best thespian of their drama class. Early in the film, when they run into each other, Jay's excited to see his buddy and they go out to a bar.
"I could watch you do anything," Jay says, convincing Timothy to tackle the menu in the fashion of their old Method acting days. It leads to a hilariously tearful and overwrought reading of lines like "A wedge of iceberg lettuce and shrimp cocktail," complete with laughs and sobs alike.
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But there's a turn, as Timothy comes clean about his real feelings about Jay: "I can't stand you. You kind of stole my life," he says. "You stole my job. And you stole my girlfriend. At 23, I didn't have much more than that." It leads to a parking-lot brawl that's an impetus for Jay's international trip of self-reflection, including a flashback to Jay's origin story where his younger self (Charlie Rowe) ends up getting a part in a movie that Timothy (Louis Partridge) coveted.
