November 28, 2025 · Watch the official trailer
Life isn’t an endless series of choices, big and small, that shape one’s destiny and determine the path they will take.
The endless possibilities of what a life could be often create a sliding-doors “what if,” full of longing and regret as people look back on the decisions they made as a microcosm of what their life was, is, and could have been.
Such existential questions are frequently at the core of cinematic narratives—especially for actors and filmmakers in the later stages of their careers—as these films become a metatextual reflection or treatise on their own life’s work.
While director Noah Baumbach still has plenty of movies left to make, it’s this key thought exercise that shapes the worldview of his latest film, “Jay Kelly,” which has been in select theaters over the past month and is set to debut on Netflix this Friday.
With Oscar-winning actor George Clooney as the titular character, “Jay Kelly” follows an older actor on the precipice of becoming an empty-nester, whose reunion with an old classmate sets him off on an international midlife crisis of sorts as Jay seeks to find who he is in a world where everyone sees him only as the roles he plays.
Clooney’s involvement here strikingly aligns with the metatextual nature of Baumbach’s film, as audiences will often transpose Clooney the man over Jay Kelly the character and it’s clear that Clooney himself has put a lot of thought into the questions his character faces.
It feels almost effortless for him to reach a level of introspection and self-reflection authentically, and he truly shines in the film’s quieter moments, which allow the actor to sit in the moments Jay has brought upon himself. This part of “Jay Kelly” – the overly sentimental and melancholic side – is where the film reaches its heights and becomes a thoroughly engaging portrait of a conflicted man.
Yet the contrivances that Baumbach thrusts upon the narrative in order to achieve these moments of poignant sentimentality have neither the comedic spark nor the dramatic nuance to maintain audience interest.
Even Adam Sandler, who is more than solid as Jay’s longtime manager Ron, isn’t given the right amount of character development, as there’s simply too much going on in the orbit of “Jay Kelly” for anyone to get close to a fully defined supporting role.
Talented character actors like Laura Dern, Emily Mortimer – who also co-wrote the film – and Thaddea Graham are largely wasted as members of Jay’s entourage. Their scenes orbit Jay without ever fully shaping or challenging him, and their presences, while engaging in brief flashes, are ultimately underwritten. These characters feel more like extensions of the film’s Hollywood satire than meaningful emotional counterweights, leaving the ensemble broad but not deep.
Isolated moments with Jay’s family offer glimpses of emotional authenticity, but they often feel disconnected from the metatextual Hollywood motif that dominates the film’s first half.
Baumbach tries to quickly breeze through decades of generational trauma and absent parenthood through disjointed, disparate scenes between Jay and his daughters — played by Riley Keough and Grace Edwards — as well as Jay’s own father issues in a rushed subplot when his dad, who is unnamed in the film but portrayed by Stacy Keach, is flown out to help bridge the third act into its pensive conclusion.
Baumbach has Jay essentially walk through his own past – watching younger versions of himself in casting rooms and on recreated movie sets – to reinforce the emotional struggles he’s feeling in the present.
While the effect is striking from a visual perspective, its execution is haphazard from a narrative standpoint. It plays as too much show versus tell, and it pushes the worldview of “Jay Kelly” beyond what this limited story is able to achieve.
Although Baumbach’s track record and the film’s Hollywood-centric narrative make “Jay Kelly” obvious Oscar bait, there’s ultimately not enough momentum for it to become a major player. It may scrape together attention in categories like Best Picture or Original Screenplay, but Clooney and Sandler face fields far too competitive for either to make a meaningful run.
Casual audiences will likely feel drawn to “Jay Kelly” thanks to its easy accessibility on Netflix and Clooney’s charming, introspective turn, though the film’s uneven structure may keep it from resonating long after the credits. For a story built on the weight of choices and the lives that might have been, “Jay Kelly” itself feels caught between versions of the film it could be – revealing flashes of something deeper without ever fully stepping into them.
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