Jay Kelly

JAY KELLY (15)

D: Noah Baumbach

Netflix / Pascal Pictures / Heyday / NB|GG (Noah Baumbach, Amy Pascal & David Heyman)

US/UK 🇺🇸🇬🇧 2025

132 mins

Comedy/Drama

W: Noah Baumbach & Emily Mortimer

DP: Linus Sandgren

Ed: Valerio Bonelli & Rachel Durance

Mus: Nicholas Britell

George Clooney (Jay Kelly), Adam Sandler (Ron Sukenick), Laura Dern (Liz), Billy Crudup (Timothy Galligan), Riley Keough (Jessica Kelly), Grace Edwards (Daisy Kelly), Stacy Keach (Mr. Kelly), Jim Broadbent (Peter Schneider)

George Clooney plays the title role in this buddy-buddy comedic drama.

Jay Kelly, an arrogant film star has a midlife crisis of sorts, and travels Europe in tow with his manager, Ron Sukenick (Adam Sandler) and entourage to attend a ceremony in Italy where he will be bestowed an achievement award for his career.  During the journey, he hopes to connect better with his father and two daughters, one of whom is estranged, but risks pushing more people away as the trip, postponing an upcoming movie shoot, could potentially derail his career.

Though the film has some good acting, there’s not much that really happens, until it culminates in a tribute to George Clooney himself, complete with a montage of all his movies since his transition from a TV actor in the mid-90s, whilst there isn’t a great character arc for his Jay Kelly character here and he doesn’t really have any lessons learned as it ultimately ends with him giving himself a pat on the back, with no resolution to being a better father, friend or son.

Nevertheless, it has some good dialogue and the ensemble cast are all fine, with Adam Sandler in particular giving one of his better performances.

7/10