George Clooney and Adam Sandler’s Netflix Movie Isn’t the Best Movie We Were Hoping for

When Jay Kelly (George Clooney), the titular star of Noah Baumbachlast film, tries to inflate himself, he places his name among the illustrious actors who preceded him. “Gary Cooper. Decay To agree. Jay Kelly. Clark Gable. Robert De Niro. Jay Kelly. You could easily replace the name “Jay Kelly” with “George Clooney,” and it would still make perfect sense.

The fact that Kelly compares himself to some of the greatest actors on screen highlights how Baumbach’s film often feels like it’s paying homage to the great films that came before it. It is Robert Altman-the opening recalls The playerwith its overlapping dialogues; Jay Kelly’s attempt to reconnect with the people who watch his films is akin to Preston Sturges‘ Sullivan’s Travels; The way Kelly introspects through his past films (and Italy, no less) seems straight out of Federico FelliniIt is 8½. Yet unlike those films that truly explore what it takes to create great art and the consequences it takes on life, Jay Kelly never quite achieves greatness like these films do. Jay Kelly tries to reach for the stars, and even though he gets close, he can’t figure out exactly what he’s aiming for.

George Clooney is an aging movie star in Noah Baumbach’s ‘Jay Kelly’

After 35 years in the film industry, Jay Kelly finds himself reflecting on what his life has meant. All his memories revolve around the projects he was involved in and the times when his mentor and friend, Peter Schneider (Jim Broadbent), deceased, he begins to look back and try to understand it all better. Yes, he has become one of the greatest, but he also has two children, Jessica and Daisy (Riley Keough And Grace Edwards), for whom he was not there, and a life lived on film sets. His closest friend – although he probably wouldn’t admit it – is his manager, Ron Sukenick. (Adam Sandler), who will drop everything to help him in any way possible.

Jay reunites with his old actor friend in his twenties, Timothy (Billy Crudup), who believes Jay stole his only chance at fameand Timothy admits that he hates Jay. Timothy could have been a star, but now he’s a child psychologist with a family, while Jay has been in the spotlight for nearly four decades. After the two fought, Jay goes on a journey of self-discoverydeciding to reunite with Daisy on a trip to Europe with friends to spend more time with her, while reflecting on his life as he prepares to accept a lifetime achievement award in Italy.

‘Jay Kelly’ struggles to figure out what he wants to be

A common refrain in Jay Kelly It’s this idea that it’s hard to be yourself, especially for an actor on screen. Jay Kelly does so many things that it’s hard to pin down exactly what the identity of this film is. Most of it serves to give us a rough idea of ​​who Jay Kelly is: he’s got charm in spades, but he’s self-centered in ways he doesn’t always recognize, and has clearly put his career before his family. But Baumbach’s film doesn’t really know how to delve deeper into this character, other than showing his occasional regrets about the path he chose, as opposed to the one he could have followed. Jay Kelly only probes its main character enough to say that he is a sometimes self-centered character who is disappointed that he didn’t do things differently, and there are already plenty of films about artists who have taken on this idea.

The screenplay, written by Noah Baumbach and Emilie Mortimer – both of whom also make appearances – tries to do too much and feels cluttered with ideas. For example, Jay’s entourage is full of characters whose names we barely get a chance to learn, and when Kelly takes a train across Europe, we meet a whole host of new people who, strangely, are part of her journey. There are relationships that are not fully exploredlike the one that existed between Jay and Ron, as well as his publicist, Liz (Laura Dern). In a way it all speaks Jay KellyIt’s a way of looking at the past in fragments, because we get general ideas about who people are rather than diving deep into them, but it ends up feeling like a lot of concepts are being thrown at the wall to see what sticks.

Because of this, Jay Kelly has a lot of great ideas that never achieve greatnesswhile interesting concepts pop up here and there, but Baumbach and Mortimer’s strongest theme is the idea of ​​how different points of view can have totally different perspectives on any given moment. At the age of 20, Jay didn’t seem to understand that when he got his big break, it robbed him of Timothy’s potential future. In another scene, Jay returns to a previous role, in which he began to fall in love with his co-star and felt some sense of familial normalcy with her. Looking back, he can’t help but wonder if it was a moment only he felt, or if his co-star also remembers it fondly. In a scenario that wants to address a lot of concepts, this way in which several people see a moment differently is the strongest that Baumbach and Mortimer found.

George Clooney Might Be the Star of ‘Jay Kelly,’ But Adam Sandler Steals the Show

As expected, George Clooney is naturally gifted at playing one of the last great movie stars. Clooney has always been good at being a larger than life character and playing a character who can pass as a normal guy, and Jay Kelly allows it to do both. Clooney still makes Jay a sympathetic character that we want to find some comfort among his mistakes, but it’s also a testament to the fact that Baumbach and Mortimer don’t want to explore the darker aspects of this character’s reality – like the fact that he’s often a bad father and friend – enough to make him anything other than a charming star.

Jay Kelly in no way attempts to criticize the entertainment industry or approach it with much insight into how it actually works. However, he sometimes tries to finding an equivalence between Jay Kelly and George Clooney that just doesn’t work. Sometimes, footage from actual Clooney films is used as a stand-in for Kelly’s films, and it’s almost as if Jay Kelly wants us to see this as a lame meta-comparison to Clooney’s work. But damn, if there’s one person who I shouldn’t Identifying with what Jay Kelly is facing is Clooney – a man who spent most of his career focusing on his stardom, only to have a solid family life after achieving what he wanted. If anything, Clooney is proof that you can have the cake and eat it too, and it’s strange that the film tries to make a false equivalence between the two.

Jay KellySandler’s best performanceof which Ron has his own struggle trying to figure out what his future is with his most important client. Ron sees Jay as both a friend and a boss, but as Jay’s story progresses, Ron begins to wonder if this is a one-sided friendship. Sandler is a great choice for Ron, as he excels at showing his frustrations with Jay, but also how much he cares about his actions. As we watch Jay go through his introspective journey, it’s Ron’s story that often hits the hardest, and Sandler portrays the emotionality of these scenes beautifully. It’s no surprise that some of the finest moments of Jay Kelly rely on the dynamic between these two elements and where they are at any given time.

As Jay leaves Los Angeles for Europe in the film’s first act, Ron asks Jay if he’s showing up. Since something or if he runs has something, to which Jay responds, “Yes.” In the same way, Jay Kelly it always feels like we’re treading that middle ground, trying to present a moving, heartbreaking experience, but never being willing to go deep enough to achieve it. It’s desperate to say something about fame, aging, the connections we make throughout life and their importance, the regrets we have, etc., but it’s too scattered to do any of these ideas justice. Like the main character himself, Jay Kelly is a film that has good intentions, but lacks the follow through to deliver on those promises.

Jay Kelly screened at the Middleburg Film Festival. It hits select theaters on November 14, followed by its release on Netflix on December 5.

Release date

November 14, 2025

Runtime

132 minutes

Director

Noah Baumbach

Writers

Emily Mortimer, Noah Baumbach

Producers

David Heyman, Noah Baumbach, Amy Pascal

Advantages and disadvantages

• Adam Sandler gives a fantastic performance as Jay Kelly who steals the show.
• Jay Kelly’s look at the duality of shared memories echoes some of the film’s best ideas.

• Jay Kelly is too scattered and too full of ideas to work well.
• As a movie about fame and regret, Jay Kelly doesn’t really say anything we haven’t heard before.