The new movie by Noah Baumbach (Frances Ha) proposes a fascinating game of mirrors. In it, Jay Kelly, the mature movie star played by George Clooney, functions simultaneously as a reflection of the actor and as alter ego from the filmmaker. The result is an emotional and lighthearted take on earlier films that have reflected on celebrity as a simulacrum, the personal cost of creative work, and cinema as a substitute for life. Baumbach, who had already dissected his divorce in Marriage Story, now carries out his particular 8 1/2This theme is revealed in the film through its protagonist, a dazzling star with a distant relationship with her daughters who, in the midst of a midlife crisis, looks back melancholically on her past and wonders who she really is, and if all the sacrifices have been worth it.