“You’re the last of the old movie stars,” someone tells Jay Kelly, and because Jay Kelly — main character of a movie called, not surprisingly, “Jay Kelly” — is played by George Clooney, the line absolutely makes sense. There’s always been, about Clooney, something timeless, something very old-school, as if you could time-travel him and his chiseled jawline into a 1940s noir and he’d be right at home. He’s not playing himself in “Jay Kelly,” but the real Clooney and the fictional Jay definitely share some DNA. Jay, an A-list celebrity, walks through life with a perpetual movie-star smile, autograph seekers always at his heels, his white shirts and equally white teeth gleaming as if caught in a permanent spotlight.

Directed by Noah Baumbach (from a script by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer), “Jay Kelly” is an elegant if overly familiar examination of stardom, of how a real self and a screen self can merge into one, of what it means to be the adored cinematic repository of someone else’s dreams. It’s also something of a road movie, in which Jay and his entourage (led by his longtime, beleaguered manager Ron, played with weary devotion by Adam Sandler) head to Europe, ostensibly so that Jay can accept an award at an Italian film festival, but really so that he can follow his college-age daughter Daisy (Grace Edwards) on her own trip with friends. Jay, in late middle age, has no doubt about the success of his career, but for his off-screen roles as father, husband, son and friend, he’s realizing that he’d like another take — something easier to do on a movie set than in real life.

“Jay Kelly” is a playful movie made with palpable love for cinema and its magic: Jay effortlessly slips from the present day into scenes from his past, at one point walking down an airplane aisle into a theater. (Linus Sandgren’s cinematography, filled with glorious movie light, is a treat.) You watch it feeling like you’ve seen movies like this before, and wondering if there’s anything new this film can have to say about its well-worn territory (spoiler alert: no). But the cast, which also includes Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough and Stacy Keach, is a pleasure, and Clooney and Sandler make an unexpectedly delightful and occasionally moving team. Watch how shrewdly Clooney deploys his famous smile — sometimes it’s genuine, sometimes it’s not, and you suspect Jay doesn’t really know the difference — or how he, just a few times, lets Jay toss off the movie-star mask. At one point, Jay gazes at his daughter (who doesn’t know he’s watching her) with an expression of achingly gentle sweetness; it’s a reminder that the biggest source of magic in movies is an performer who can, suddenly and without warning, show us the human heart.

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'JAY KELLY'

3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for language)

Running time: 2:12

How to watch: Now in theaters and streaming on Netflix Dec. 5

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