This new big-screen comedy drama starring the A-lister as a Hollywood superstar travelling across Europe is the latest glossy tribute to the one per cent – and it's getting boring.

It must be tough to be a stupidly handsome, stupidly rich Hollywood superstar. That, at least, is the message of Jay Kelly, a new comedy drama from Noah Baumbach, the director of The Squid and the Whale (2005), Frances Ha (2012) and Marriage Story (2019). The rich and handsome Hollywood superstar who gives the film its title (played by George Clooney – so it's hardly a stretch) may seem to have a charmed life, what with his sterling body of work and his team of doting assistants, but he is starting to have doubts about the validity of his acting roles, and he is worried that he hasn't spent enough time with his daughters, one of whom is backpacking around Europe with friends. Now do you see how tough it is for him?

Except… it turns out that he needn't have worried. Shrugging off the film he is due to start shooting, Jay summons a fleet of Range Rovers to zip him and his entourage to a private jet that will whisk them across the Atlantic. He will then catch the same train from Paris as his daughter, and travel with her to receive a lifetime achievement award at an arts festival in Tuscany.

Everything is sorted out for him by his employees, led by his faithful manager (Adam Sandler, who is so touchingly pained and exhausted that he could be in line for a best supporting actor Oscar). True, the first-class carriages on the train are full, but everyone in the rest of the train greets Jay with delighted courtesy. True, he hasn't been a perfect father, but his daughters still love him. Conflicts involving his egotistical father (Stacy Keach) and an envious old friend from acting school (Billy Crudup) are spirited away by the hired help. Even first-world problems are no problem for Jay.

And that's the fatal flaw that runs through Jay Kelly, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday and will be coming to Netflix in December. When a protagonist can make his wishes come true with a click of his fingers – or, to be precise, a flash of his megawatt smile – then all jeopardy and tension vanish. The viewer can chuckle at the polished jokes and coo at the sun-dappled historic hill towns of Tuscany, but it's difficult to care about Jay's anxieties. What's at stake, after all? What's the worst that can happen?

Co-written by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer, Jay Kelly follows countless other US films and television series, many of them influenced by HBO hit The........

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