At the Venice Film Festival, Noah Baumbach, Yorgos Lanthimos and Werner Herzog put our beliefs to the test of reality.

"It's a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It's much easier to be someone else or no one at all." This quote from Sylvia Plath's diary is featured as the epigraph to Jay Kelly , Noah Baumbach 's new film, which premieres Thursday, August 28, at the Venice Film Festival, the first highlight of the competition.

This leads us down the path of questions of identity: who are we really? Who are we trying to be? A meditation that also ran through Bugonia , by Yorgos Lanthimos, and Ghost Elephants, by Werner Herzog, on the same day. Anchored in different belief systems – cinema for Jay Kelly , conspiracy theories in Bugonia , traditional myths for Werner Herzog – the three films confront them with a reality that sheds a different light on them. And brings exciting layers of nuance.

Jay Kelly (George Clooney) is the person everyone thinks they know from having seen him in so many films. A Hollywood star who can no longer travel without a slew of assistants, including his manager, Ron (Adam Sandler, poignantly understated), and his publicist, Liz (Laura Dern). In the public's eyes, he's an American hero. But, through taking on a string of roles and retreating into an artificial daily life, he's lost all touch with reality, his loved ones, and even his own identity. His tense reunion with a former actor colleague, Tim (Billy Crudup), to whom he owes the role that launched his career, triggers an existential crisis that leads him to Italy to track down his youngest daughter.

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