"It's a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It's much easier to be somebody else or nobody at all." This quote from Sylvia Plath's diary opens Jay Kelly, the new film by Noah Baumbach, which premiered on Thursday, August 28, at the Venice Film Festival, marking the first highlight of the competition.

The film explored questions of identity: Who are we really? Who are we trying to become? This reflection also ran through Bugonia, by Yorgos Lanthimos, and Ghost Elephants, by Werner Herzog, both screened on the same day. Rooted in different belief systems – cinema in Jay Kelly, conspiracy theories in Bugonia, traditional myths in Herzog's film – the three movies confronted these systems with reality, casting them in a new light and adding fascinating layers of nuance.

Jay Kelly (George Clooney) is that person everyone thinks they know from having seen him in so many films – a Hollywood star who can no longer go anywhere without an entourage, including his manager Ron (Adam Sandler, in a movingly understated performance) and his publicist Liz (Laura Dern). To the public, he is an American hero. But after years of playing roles and retreating into an artificial daily life, he has lost touch with reality, his loved ones and even himself. An awkward reunion with his former actor friend Tim (Billy Crudup), to whom he owes the role that launched his career, triggers an existential crisis that sends him searching for his youngest daughter in Italy.

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