Jay Kelly (2025)
Directed by: Noah Baumbach
Premise: A movie star (George Clooney) has a personal crisis following the death of his mentor. He brings his entourage on a trip through Europe where he will be honored with a career retrospective.
What Works: Jay Kelly was cowritten and directed by Noah Baumbach and stars George Clooney in the title role. This story could only be made well by a filmmaker and an actor with seniority in the industry. The picture is wistful but it isn’t self-congratulatory or a pity party. Jay Kelly has achieved Hollywood success but he was an absentee father and treated the people around him with indifference. In lesser hands Jay Kelly might be a maudlin and formulaic tale of redemption. The film even sets us up for that; it’s structured to reveal the quality of Jay Kelly’s character through his interactions with other people. In It’s a Wonderful Life fashion, the character recalls critical moments of his life and reunites with family and friends. But Clooney and the filmmakers don’t let the character off easy. One of the best aspects of Jay Kelly is the relationship between the title character and his manager played by Adam Sandler. Their subplot hits a melancholy note as Sandler’s character recognizes that their relationship isn’t what he thought it was and this becomes a proxy for the audience’s relationship to movie stars and the entertainment business in general. The filmmakers have the maturity to acknowledge that success requires sacrifice. They also recognize that time is finite and that we don’t get the third act redemption of a Hollywood fantasy. The character’s mixed feelings about his legacy culminates in an ending that takes on a metatextual quality. Jay Kelly reflects on fame and celebrity but it also plays as a swan song for the classic Hollywood movie star and the mystery and glamour associated with it. The film is a farewell to a certain kind of actor that the contemporary movie business doesn’t produce anymore.
What Doesn’t: The filmmakers establish that Jay Kelly is a jerk but they only allow him to be cringy, not abrasive. The character could have afforded a little more difficulty. The very end of Jay Kelly indulges the kind of sentimental manipulation that the rest of the movie resists. As Jay Kelly travels through Europe, he brings along his entourage including his manager and publicist, played by Adam Sandler and Laura Dern. Their relationship has a complicated past and it’s easy to imagine another, more compelling film that focused on their characters with Jay Kelly in the background.
Disc extras: Available on Netflix.
Bottom Line: Jay Kelly is a thoughtful and wistful story about aging. It’s a requiem for the classic Hollywood movie star but the film’s observations go beyond the movies.
Episode: #1082 (January 11, 2026)