by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The key problem with the movie Jay Kelly is it’s a movie devoted to explicating rich people problems. And not in an interesting way. The first half of the movie is just a breezy affair where there’s no there there.
There’s just no conflict.
So, if I were to given the opportunity to “fix” the movie Jay Kelly, here’s what I would do. I would infuse some of Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine movie into the plot. I’d figure out some way to have the hero get out of his comfort zone. Confront that not everyone is thrilled with how fucking rich he is.
I’d do this by either having him go to, say, a Thanksgiving celebration where he met his “loser” brother, or maybe put the hero in a situation where he’s on the cusp of losing everything for some reason. Or maybe have Jay Kelly fall in love with a lower middle class woman with some principle and pluck who he can’t woo by just throwing money at the problem.
I’d do something so there were some…stakes. The actual real movie Jay Kelly has little or no stakes. Things just happen. The second half of the movie does have something happen, but it’s still meh in my book.
I think the movie is a prime example of what’s wrong with Hollywood. Because of the fucking massive structural income inequality in the United States’ economy, the rich people who would otherwise make movies that people might want to actually see are either too fucking woke, or woo or oblivious to focus on telling a good story.
Anyway. I would like to thank Claude LLM for listening to me gripe about how bad Jay Kelly was as I watched it.
