normalcy

This week, George Clooney has been promoting Jay Kelly, his latest film. It’s directed by Noah Baumbach and I read one scathing review of it at the Daily Beast. The review notes that the film is “saccharine, toothless, and cheesily meta” and it’s “straining to thread a needle so that it bittersweetly laments its A-lister’s shortcomings while nonetheless forgiving him for them.” And on top of all that, Laura Dern plays Jay Kelly’s publicist. HARD PASS. Anyway, I wanted to note something I was thinking about as Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s marriage suddenly crashed and burned this week: one week ago, I definitely would have said that the Clooneys are much more likely to split than Keith and Nicole. Especially given the vibe around George and Amal for the past year. But according to George, everything is going swimmingly in his marriage and his family. From some of his assorted interviews:

His routines: “I have normalcy. You know, I drive my kids to school every morning. I have normalcy — except for this [premiere]!”

He isn’t suffering from a “what does it all mean” crisis like Jay Kelly: “There wasn’t that many similarities, in a weird way. Because he’s a guy who’s just so sad about his career and his life because he didn’t have friends and family, and he surrounds himself with people that just, he paid. I’ve been very lucky to have great family and great friends, and my kids actually like me still. They’re young.”

His big life lesson: “The greatest lesson I learned is to marry the right person, which I did. And so, it has been nothing but an honor and a pleasure to be married to my wife.” George, 64, also shared that he and Amal, 47, marked their latest anniversary by going out to dinner together.

[From People Magazine]

The bloody school run! Did I miss a memo or something? When did “the school run” become the sole barometer for “a humbling experience and an equalizer among men?” The way Prince William goes on and on about the school run, you’d think it was the most important aspect of parenthood. As for his marriage… well, who knows. I certainly wouldn’t want to be married to a ratf-cking drama queen, but Amal certainly appears to be in it for the long haul.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.