George Clooney as the title role in Jay Kelly.Image via Netflix
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Thomas Butt
Published 1 hour ago
Thomas Butt is a senior writer. An avid film connoisseur, Thomas actively logs his film consumption on Letterboxd and vows to connect with many more cinephiles through the platform. He is immensely passionate about the work of Martin Scorsese, John Ford, and Albert Brooks. His work can be read on Collider and Taste of Cinema. He also writes for his own blog, The Empty Theater, on Substack. He is also a big fan of courtroom dramas and DVD commentary tracks. For Thomas, movie theaters are a second home. A native of Wakefield, MA, he is often found scrolling through the scheduled programming on Turner Classic Movies and making more room for his physical media collection. Thomas habitually increases his watchlist and jumps down a YouTube rabbit hole of archived interviews with directors and actors. He is inspired to write about film to uphold the medium's artistic value and to express his undying love for the art form. Thomas looks to cinema as an outlet to better understand the world, human emotions, and himself.
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The worst thing Jay Kelly has going against it is its lofty expectations. When we heard that Noah Baumbach would be directing George Clooney in a show business drama set across Europe that serves as a biting commentary on Hollywood and a meta-textual reflection of the actor's career, we would've only accepted a masterpiece. What audiences received, however, was a charming, pretty, well-acted but deeply flawed dramedy that leaves meat on the bone. Baumbach's latest film, about emotionally distressed artists and fathers, now available to stream on Netflix, fancies itself as both a soulful meditation on the magic of the movies and a biting critique of its poisonous effects on its inhabitants. Yet somehow, despite its highbrow and luxurious setting, Jay Kelly seems to forget that it's supposed to be commenting on the industry.
'Jay Kelly' is a Familiar Study of Aging and Regret
George Clooney signing fan autographs next to Laura Dern and Adam Sandler in Jay Kelly.Image via Netflix
Jay Kelly, co-written by actor and screenwriter Emily Mortimer, features Clooney as the titular aging movie star reflecting on life and past regrets on his way to accepting an award at an Italian film festival. The real motivation behind his journey of self-discovery and redemption is to meet up with his daughter, Daisy (Grace Edwards), who is vacationing with her friends. Tagging alongside Jay is his right-hand man and manager, Ron Sukenick (Adam Sandler), and his publicist, Liz (Laura Dern). The performances are solid to exceptional across the board, with the scene-stealer being Billy Crudup as Jay's old acting friend, who reveals his deep-seated disdain for him and his success.
Cribbing from other sobering dramas about artists reflecting on their lives and repenting for their sins, notably 8½ and All That Jazz, Jay Kelly feels more removed from its industry backdrop than its predecessors. Considering we only know about Jay's career through conversations and meta-textual readings of Clooney's own life, Baumbach is not exactly a pointed satire or takedown of celebrities or Hollywood. Rather, it's more in line with his other movies about distant fathers and shattered families, from The Squid and the Whale to Marriage Story. To its credit as a film with mass appeal, Jay Kelly relates to anyone worried about the perils of age and whose life has suffered due to workaholic tendencies.
'Jay Kelly' Fails to Tackle the Perils of Show Business
Considering the talent involved, with Clooney's rise from a television star to business mogul and Baumbach's experience as an indie writer-director and major studio visionary, Jay Kelly should have more to say about the influential impact the art form and industry have on its inhabitants. While we don't need a director to hold the audience's hand, Baumbach hardly takes any aim at show business for causing Jay's ennui. We're just supposed to accept that he's sad because he's getting old and out of touch with reality. This sentiment is wholly understandable and recognizable, but Baumbach's refusal to tie Jay's life to the fabric of the medium, something Steven Spielberg beautifully conveyed in The Fabelmans, makes the character inscrutable. Anyone who casually follows the industry knows it is toxic, commercially driven, and generally detrimental to your well-being, but our main character remains oblivious as to why he's unfulfilled. Even if this obliviousness is meant to be a comment on Jay's myopic view on life, Baumbach fails to register this note.
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Baumbach's take on celebrity and regrets tries to do too much to be effective.
Posts 1 By Ross BonaimeSure, he's the titular character, but all the conflicts in the film are entirely related to Jay's egoism rather than the apparatus of the industry. The movie portrays Ron's frustration as an absent father as something that could only happen when working for a demanding star like Jay. In reality, there are surely plenty of overworked agents like Ron who haven't watched any of their kids' sports games because their job requires them to hand their lives over to the assembly line of film production. Timothy (Crudup), who turned to psychology after his acting career failed to take off, is only used as a foil to the titular character and not to underline the tragedies of pursuing a career in the arts. Most inexplicable of all, Daisy reveals to her dad that she dreams of following in Jay's footsteps, even after watching her older sister, Jessica (Riley Keough), get chewed up and spit out by the industry.
In short, people are strangely not cynical about filmmaking as a business in Jay Kelly, a theme that's been popular in 2025 with movies like Sentimental Value and shows like The Studio. Noah Baumbach, a writer-director known for his biting voice and pitch-black tenor, underlining the dark side of happy families in Margot at the Wedding and The Meyerowitz Stories, takes it easy on showbiz, capped off by an ending that sees Jay warmly receiving a compilation of his greatest hits on screen (which are just clips of George Clooney movies). The film, with its gorgeous photography and picturesque European locations, can't help but feel romantic about the movies.
Jay Kelly is currently streaming on Netflix.
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Release Date
November 14, 2025
Runtime
132 minutes
Director
Noah Baumbach
Writers
Emily Mortimer, Noah Baumbach
Cast
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George Clooney
Jay Kelly
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Adam Sandler
Ron
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Jay Kelly
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