‘Jay Kelly’ review: George Clooney impresses as a jaded movie star in Noah Baumbach’s gentle drama

Dir: Noah Baumbach. US/UK/Italy. 2025. 132mins

It takes a village to raise a movie star; especially one who, at 60, is starting to doubt the life choices he’s made. Noah Baumbach’s melancholy drama stars George Clooney as the titular A-lister as he travels to Europe to receive a lifetime achievement award, his anxious entourage in tow. But although Jay Kelly explores familiar thematic terrain of an ageing man wrestling with regret, this tender film is mildly radical in its insistence that celebrities were once just everyday people — and might still be during unguarded moments.

Compassionately chronicles the human toll of celebrity

This is Baumbach’s third straight feature to premiere in competition in Venice, following 2022’s festival opener White Noise and 2019’s Marriage Story. Jay Kelly then opens in the US on November 14 before streaming on Netflix on December 5. The studio (which has now released four Baumbach pictures) is aiming for awards consideration, particularly for Clooney, who is joined by a high-profile cast that includes Adam Sandler and Laura Dern. No doubt this tale of a Hollywood luminary, and the people who work for him, will resonate with many industry professionals.

Longtime star Jay Kelly (Clooney) has completed yet another picture, and is about to start another one, when he attends the funeral of the filmmaker who launched his career 35 years ago. At the service, Jay runs into Tim (Billy Crudup), a former friend who started acting around the same time — and who accuses Jay of stealing his big break. The two men end up in a physical altercation, which prompts Jay to question his priorities and abandon his forthcoming film.

Instead, he impulsively flies to Paris, hoping to meet up with his teenage daughter Daisy (Grace Edwards), who is spending her summer backpacking with friends, before heading to Tuscany to accept a career achievement honour. Fearful that Jay will be in breach of contract, his loyal manager Ron (Sandler) and publicist Liz (Dern) tag along, desperate to ensure Jay doesn’t renege on this upcoming film.

Despite the summer timeframe, Jay Kelly has an autumnal air as it follows a wistful Jay on an existential journey through his past. At key moments, the actor relives crucial memories, including the incident that angered Tim, marriages that went wrong, children he neglected, colleagues he disappointed. These gracefully-integrated flashbacks, in which Charlie Rowe plays the younger, carefree Jay, are staged in a realistic manner, with the present-day Jay watching the action as an outside observer.

Although Baumbach and co-writer Emily Mortimer satirise Hollywood’s disconnect from the real world, the film could hardly be described as a takedown of out-of-touch elites. Rather, Jay Kelly compassionately chronicles the human toll of celebrity — both on the celebrity and those in their midst. Jay may be trying to forge a bond with distant Daisy — not to mention his older daughter, Jessica (Keough), who wants nothing to do with him — but Ron and Liz similarly struggle with a work/life imbalance. They are not famous like Jay, but they too have misgivings about their devotion to this demanding industry, sacrificing relationships in the name of maintaining their Hollywood clout.

Clooney is ideally suited to play a suave, charming older actor who fears he never was an artist of much depth. Wielding a megawatt smile, which feels both like Jay’s defence mechanism and a foolproof tool to disarm others, Clooney hints at the man’s inability to transcend his personal limitations. Jay may be a well-meaning, soulful individual, but there’s a nagging superficiality about him — the same surface-level appeal that has made him such a great movie star, adept at embodying others but never truly authentic as himself. Clooney’s old-school Hollywood handsomeness, paired with the vulnerability he brought to dramas like The Descendants, allows Jay to be a fascinatingly complex shallow person.

The film’s measured perspective on Jay occasionally gets interrupted by an uneven comedic tone, as well as Baumbach’s underdeveloped interest in other characters. Sandler, who previously appeared in Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories, gives a nicely grounded performance as Ron, the harried manager who genuinely believes that what Jay does has real value in a world that needs to be entertained. Some of the film’s best and most bittersweet moments involve just Jay and Ron, who has provided this movie star with his most consistent and rewarding relationship.