Jay Kelly, 2025.
Directed by Noah Baumbach.
Starring George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Greta Gerwig, Riley Keough, Grace Edwards, Stacey Keach, Jim Broadbent, Patrick Wilson, Emily Mortimer and Billy Crudup.
SYNOPSIS:
Famous movie actor Jay Kelly embarks on a journey of self-discovery, confronting his past and present with his devoted manager Ron. Poignant and humor-filled, pitched at the intersection of regrets and glories.
Noah Baumbach introduces George Clooney’s Jay Kelly with a beautiful behind-the-scenes one-take that hints we’re about to get a wizard’s curtain look at what it takes to make it in Hollywood. It’s another stab at Babylon with the Netflix bucks, or Jerry Maguire in the acting world. In a way, that’s what this muddled melodrama is, but the journey is so downright odd that it’s difficult to care about anything that’s going on.
Clooney is an aging icon, essentially playing himself, who instead of taking a part in a project directed by two of Hollywood’s up-and-coming stars, is triggered into going on a European vacation to stalk his youngest daughter. This throws his entourage into a panic. A ragtag group of highly strung enablers that includes Adam Sandler’s agent, Laura Dern’s PA, and Emily Mortimer’s stylist.
On this Planes, Trains and Automobiles journey, Jay steps into scenes from the past – his big break and the moral ramifications of it, meeting the mother of his first child, or letting down a director he loved dearly. They are all played with melancholy, a soft-focus sadness befitting of a movie loaded with regret. If that tone had been sustained then Jay Kelly might have earned the empathy and heart that it so yearns for.
However, these moments are peppered throughout a film that’s tonally all-over-the-place. At one stage it appears Clooney has stepped into a sitcom as he boards a train and is confronted by a conveyor belt of the broadest characters imaginable. It’s so heightened and over-the-top that any intended mirth is rendered redundant by the fact you’re bemused by the creative choices. It’s a reaction that’s repeated as they visit Italy, where they encounter even more of these cartoonish characters, and it all culminates in a baffling chase across a field, the conclusion of which elicits the wrong kind of laughter.
It’s all the more jarring because the cast are putting in awards-worthy performances. Clooney is magnificent in the contemplative moments; the discussions with his eldest daughter (the terrific Riley Keough), a reunion with his old drama school “budd-ay” Tim (a phenomenal turn from Billy Crudup), and a final-reel encounter with his ball-busting father (Stacy Keach). These are the times when Kelly becomes Clooney, intentionally blurring that line, grounding the character in reality, and that’s when the film lands, when you feel for him, because on-the-whole Jay’s an unlikeable and empty presence. But then that’s the whole idea.
The same can’t be said for Sandler, whose beat-down agent is to some extent the audience projection, especially during the more exasperating parts of the film. Better when he’s afforded quieter asides than being part of a broadly painted family that includes the most Jonathan Lipnicki kid since Jonathan Lipnicki, his nice-guy turn will surely land him plenty of nominations come awards season.
In the end Baumbach, who co-wrote the script with Emily Mortimer, can’t decide whether he wants to admonish his star or celebrate him, but by landing somewhere in the middle it dulls the impact of Jay Kelly. The final flourish is a perfect example of this, where Jay sits through a show reel of George Clooney’s finest moments, from The Peacemaker, through Syriana and The Thin Red Line, and it’s hard not to get swept up in the gravitas and emotion of it all, but come the dimming of the lights you begin to wonder whether you or the characters have learned anything at all.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film ★ ★ / Movie ★ ★
Matt Rodgers – Follow me on Twitter
Originally published October 12, 2025. Updated October 13, 2025.
