Gary Cooper: Jay Kelly. Cary Grant: Jay Kelly. Clark Gable: Jay Kelly. George Clooney: Jay Kelly. Not since The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent has a movie been about the actor playing the character as much as it is about the character themselves. Unlike Massive Talent, which mostly just used the meme-ified persona of Nicolas Cage for surface-level metahumor, writer/director Noah Baumbach plays it pretty straight, investigating the walls that have been built over decades to separate George Clooney the person from George Clooney the movie star.

For instance, Jay Kelly and George Clooney have reached the point of fame where they pay the price of no longer being able to be a normal part of society. Merely walking down the street will initiate a mob of fans and paparazzi, and any form of contact is kept secret for security purposes. Everyone is either trying to get or give something, and the trajectory of his career and personal life is a perennial headline. It’s a lonely life, one that requires a great deal of sheltering and personal sacrifice to achieve and maintain. Sure, the rewards come in the form of millions of dollars and being worshipped as a god. But money can’t buy happiness, and it isn’t much fun to be a god to those you’ll never know.

Baumbach communicates all of this in the opening set piece, a long take that swirls up and around the set of Jay’s newest film. There’s a person assigned to always be fixing Jay’s costume and makeup, a person to get him coffee, and a person to train the canine co-star. All those hours of work are to support the few seconds of artistic genius that are printed onto celluloid. Ron (Adam Sandler) and Liz (Laura Dern) manage Jay’s persona with the outside world. Does he want to do a movie with a pair of up-and-coming directors? Does he want to accept a career tribute award in Tuscany? Jay is on top of the world, which means the only direction for him to go is down.

Jay is now becoming an empty nester after his youngest daughter is going on a European summer vacation before her fall semester at college. He’s estranged from his eldest daughter, the cost of his career blooming simultaneously as she was growing up. Jay’s longtime mentor, director Peter Schneider (played by Jim Broadbent), has also just passed away. He and Jay shared many good years in the past, making movies at the height of their powers. At the funeral, Peter’s son spins a different tale of his dad never being around, and how the movies both personally and financially ruined him near the end of his life. Jay fears that he may be heading down that path, so he decides to abandon his current plans and chase his daughter around Europe.

Baumbach and co-writer Emily Mortimer (who also acts in the film as Jay’s personal hairdresser) never deny that the crux of this narrative was spurred by the fact that a rich, privileged actor is having a midlife crisis (or a three-quarters life crisis, since he is on the other side of sixty years old). His daughter is going on this trip because he’s paying for it, and he can follow her by immediately booking a private jet and having his entourage accompany him. With political and social upheaval, natural disasters, and the overall feeling of optimism fading away, why should I care about Jay Kelly?

Frankly, there isn’t much of a reason to care about the plight of Jay Kelly beyond the fact that he’s so darn charming and likable. Clooney turns in one of his best performances, with the movie star wattage turned all the way up. But he’s also self-reflective and regretful, always asking if he can have one more take, a luxury that can only be afforded on a movie set. Ron’s biggest fault is that he can’t say no to Jay, always stuck between his roles as a manager and a lifelong friend. He gives and gives and gives, with the only source of gratitude being the 15% he claims from Jay’s paychecks. Sandler matches the excellence he previously delivered for Baumbach in The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected). The tide of public sentiment has turned in his favor over the years, and an Oscar nomination would be a deserved apex.

Nicholas Britell’s score includes tender strings, and Linus Sandgren’s cinematography is richly textured. Right after Jay lands in Paris, there’s a shot of the string of cars circling a roundabout. The sun hasn’t yet risen, with the blue hour bathing the streets and faraway Eiffel Tower in a pool of coolness. It’s a breathtakingly beautiful shot, and it was the moment I realized that this was some of the most fun I’ve had with a movie all year.