When Noah Baumbach makes a film, Hollywood listens. This is truer than ever given the wide admiration he received for his recent directorial turn in Marriage Story, and it’s certainly true of the script he co-wrote with Greta Gerwig for her own directorial effort in Barbie. His latest film, Jay Kelly, is a love letter (perhaps more accurately described as a ‘regret letter’) to Hollywood, centering an actor at the back end of his career who comes to think hard about all he gave up along the way.

It’s a beautiful and decidedly human story, dealing with aging, legacy, mourning lost possibilities, and the need for connection (all topics he’s interrogated prior), here packaged in an engaging Hollywood meta-narrative that helps the medicine go down smoothly. The film has some small issues pertaining to plot contrivances and pacing, but it’s overall a thoughtful film anchored by a set of exceptional central performances from Clooney and Sandler.

Jay Kelly centers Jay Kelly (George Clooney), an actor who is world-renowned but slowly approaching the later years of his career. Jay receives news that the director who gave him his big break, Peter Schneider (Jim Broadbent), has passed away. He attends the service and runs into his old acting buddy Timothy (Billy Crudup), and the pair catch up over drinks before the meet goes sour because Timothy secretly hates Jay for supposedly stealing his big break.

The interaction sends Jay spiralling and reconsidering his priorities, and he arranges to crash the European train trip of his daughter Daisy (Grace Edwards), en route to the reception of a career celebration award in Italy. Increaingly sad over the sacrifices he’s made in his career, and the dearth of real relationships in his life, Jay sets his mind on retiring, causing further tension with his manager and friend, Ron (Adam Sandler), creating a cavalcade of pressures.

An Excellent Script Anchors A Thoughtful Story of Self-Interrogation and Regret

Baumbach is uncontroversially one of Hollywood’s finest working screenwriters, having penned excellent scripts like The Squid and the Whale and Marriage Story alongside cowritten exemplary scripts including Fantastic Mr. Fox, Frances Ha, and Barbie. Jay Kelly, a co-written venture by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer, easily ranks among his finest. Jay Kelly’s world is rich with the insider detail that only a life in the Hollywood trenches could provide, allowing for charming and interesting layers of meta-commentary. That rich world allows for a believable crisis at the character’s heart: Jay’s spent a life putting career first, then comes to realize he’s sacrificed building good, real relationships for portraying imaginary people and relying on employees. This is rich dramatic material, folded neatly in with surreal dramatic interludes as we see Jay relive his memories and glide through odd Hollywood moments.

Jay Kelly tackles interesting themes and boasts charismatic performances, and it’s a breezy affair with surreal interludes and big-shot Hollywood experiences aplenty. That said, the transitions into Jay’s enacted memories occasionally disrupt the film’s flow in odd ways. The strained relationship with his father, played by the excellent Stacy Keach, provides an interesting dynamic but feels forced–it does not feel like Jay would invite him to the award ceremony to begin with. Certain characters have revelations or key moments, but exit Jay’s life or resolve a crisis with too much narrative expediency.

The way his conflict ends with Tim is too easy in this context. Liz (Laura Dern), Jay’s publicist, makes a different choice that’s similarly too quickly handled. It’s a pacing problem that pretty clearly has narrative expediency in mind… things happen because the script needs to increase Jay’s crisis, not because they’re organically set up in that trajectory. That said, even though the pacing could be adjusted, what happens works and proves useful to an enjoyable film that generates a thought-provoking crisis.

George Clooney and Adam Sandler Give Two of the Year’s Best Performances

George Clooney gives an exceptional performance here, a perfect cast given his prominent movie star charisma and a near-lifetime on the silver screen. The role takes subtlety, particularly a delicate balance between the superficial performative elements that his professional life requires and the growing unease jay experiences as he comes to terms with the connections he’s lost and those he never had. Clooney handles all this with evident depth and layered complexity. Adam Sandler again continues to remind audiences how exceptional he is with dramatic material. He plays Ron as the dedicated professional who has become so close to his manager that they’re friends… or are they? Can they truly be, given it’s a paid relationship? It delivers complicated character work, and Sandler is heartbreaking here. Ron struggles to define himself over the course of the film.

Altogether, it’s these performances that shine brightest in Noah Baumbach’s interrogation of the sacrifices it takes to see one’s name in Hollywood’s bright lights. Jay Kelly’s self-interrogation around the sacrifices he’s made is sure to prove thought-provoking, given how rich and nuanced Clooney’s performance is. Sandler similarly explores a relatable struggle for identity that’s beautifully translated to the screen and often heartbreaking. The script and Baumbach’s direction are both layered and thoughtful, and the Hollywood meta-moments add an extra layer of enjoyable detail that renders an emotional film enjoyable. It’s an excellent film, full of Hollywood magic and Jay’s longing-filled efforts to take himself to task. It’s fantastic.

Jay Kelly was screened at AFI 2025. It premieres November 14 in select theaters, and debuts on Netflix on December 5, 2025.

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