Jay Kelly, or The Unbearable Lightness of Being George Clooney

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

If there is a specific circle of cinematic hell reserved for films that are simultaneously aggressively competent and spiritually bankrupt, Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, currently streaming on Netflix, has just signed a perpetual lease on the penthouse suite. Clocking in at a bloated 132 minutes, this film is not merely a misfire; it is a meticulously crafted, star-studded void. It is a film that demands you weep for the plight of the ultra-wealthy, ultra-famous, and ultra-handsome, asking without a hint of irony: Isn’t it hard being beloved by the entire world?

To answer the film's own implicit question: No. No, it isn't. And certainly not hard enough to justify this insufferable exercise in cine-narcissism.

The pitch for Jay Kelly probably sounded electric in a boardroom. Take George Clooney, the last true movie star, and have him play "Jay Kelly," a fictionalized version of himself—a charismatic, aging Hollywood icon grappling with the hollowness of his own legacy. Pair him with Adam Sandler as Ron Sukenick, his neurotic, long-suffering manager and best friend. Put them on a train through the sun-drenched vistas of Europe, heading toward a lifetime achievement award in Tuscany. Let Noah Baumbach, the scribe of neurotic East Coast intellectualism, direct it.

What could go wrong? Everything. Literally everything.

The film opens with Jay Kelly refusing to help his old mentor, Peter Schneider (Jim Broadbent), secure financing for a final film. It’s meant to establish Jay as a man who has traded his artistic soul for commercial viability, but because Clooney plays Jay with that trademark, bulletproof charm, the moment lands with the emotional weight of a feather. When Schneider inevitably dies (off-screen, thank god, sparing us at least one scene of manipulative melodrama), Jay decides to alleviate his guilt by embarking on a "whirlwind" trip to Europe.

The goal? To reconnect with his estranged daughter, Daisy (Grace Edwards), who is backpacking with friends, and to accept an award he doesn't feel he deserves. What follows is less a narrative and more a series of disjointed vignettes where wealthy people wear linen suits, drink expensive wine, and complain about how lonely they are inside their five-star hotels.

The film’s fatal flaw is its reliance on meta-commentary that is neither clever nor insightful. Baumbach and co-writer Emily Mortimer seem to think that simply acknowledging Clooney’s real-life stardom constitutes a deconstruction of it. It doesn’t.

Throughout the film, we are treated to "dream-like" flashbacks where Jay wanders through movie sets of his past. These sequences are shot with a soft-focus haze that I assume is meant to evoke Fellini’s 8½ or Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories. Instead, they look like high-budget perfume commercials. I half-expected to see coffee pods appearing! We see Jay looking sad in a Roman gladiator costume; Jay looking sad in a gritty 70s crime thriller; Jay looking sad in a spacesuit.

The absolute nadir of this self-referential cringe comes in the film's climax at the Tuscan film festival. Jay sits in the audience, tears welling in his eyes, as he watches a "sizzle reel" of his career. But here’s the kicker: the clips are from actual George Clooney movies. We see clips from Michael Clayton, Out of Sight, and Solaris.

We are watching George Clooney, playing a character named Jay Kelly, crying while watching clips of George Clooney. It is a snake eating its own tail, and then choking on it. The scene is intended to be a poignant realization that his work did matter, that he did connect with people. But for the audience, it feels like an assault. It’s an invitation to a private ego-stroking session that we all paid a subscription to witness. It completely shatters the suspension of disbelief. If Jay Kelly is George Clooney, then who is George Clooney in this universe? Does Batman & Robin exist here? The movie doesn't care. It just wants you to look at Clooney’s face and feel... something.

If the meta-narrative is pretentious, the comedy is baffling. Baumbach has always had a specific, dry wit, but here he attempts a broad, slapstick sensibilities that feels alien to his DNA.

Take, for instance, the much-discussed train sequence. Jay and Ron are on a luxury train to Florence when a cyclist (yes, a cyclist on a train) steals a passenger's handbag. Jay, desperate to feel like a "real hero" and not just a movie hero, gives chase. What ensues is a sequence that feels ripped from a bad Pink Panther sequel. Clooney runs through carriages, slipping on food, dodging eccentric passengers who feel like caricatures drawn by a tourist who spent three hours in Italy. The musical score, by the usually reliable Nicholas Britell, swells into a jaunty, pizzicato frenzy that screams "Whimsy!" in a way that makes you want to cover your ears.

The scene ends with Jay retrieving the bag, breathless and triumphant, only to be ignored by his daughter who is in the dining car. The movie wants to be La Dolce Vita, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Wild Strawberries all at once, but it lacks the soul of any of them.

The tragedy of Jay Kelly is the sheer calibre of talent being squandered.

George Clooney is, well, George Clooney. He can’t not be charismatic. But he is sleepwalking here. He delivers every line with the same wistful, mid-range melancholy, relying entirely on the "Clooney head tilt" to convey emotion. There is no edge to Jay Kelly. We are told he is a narcissist who abandoned his friends and family for fame, but we never see it. He’s nice to waiters, he’s polite to fans, he loves his manager. The movie is too afraid to make him unlikable, so his redemption arc feels unearned because he never really fell in the first place.

Then there is Adam Sandler. Critics have been praising his dramatic turn here, but let’s be honest: he’s playing a doormat. Ron Sukenick is a thankless role, a character whose entire existence is defined by his subservience to Jay. Sandler plays him with a slumped-shoulder weariness that is effective for about twenty minutes, but eventually, you just want to shake him. There is a "climactic" argument between the two where Ron finally quits, telling Jay, "I can't be your mirror anymore." It’s meant to be devastating. Instead, it feels like a mercy killing for the character.

The supporting cast is equally stranded. Laura Dern, as Jay’s publicist Liz, pops in to scream into a cell phone and wear fabulous trench coats, but she has no inner life. Billy Crudup shows up as Timothy, an old acting school roommate, for a single scene that is supposed to serve as the film's conscience. He delivers a monologue about "selling out" that is so heavy-handed it feels like he’s reading from a college freshman’s diary. And poor Riley Keough and Grace Edwards, playing Jay’s daughters, are reduced to plot devices—symbolic representations of "Neglected Family" rather than actual human beings.

Visually, the film is stunning, in the way a screensaver is stunning. Cinematographer Linus Sandgren captures the golden light of the Italian countryside with technical perfection. The rolling hills of Tuscany, the cobbled streets of Florence, the opulent interiors of luxury trains—it’s all beautiful. But it’s a hollow beauty. It’s "Postcard Cinema." The setting never feels like a real place; it feels like a backdrop for rich people’s ennui. There is no grit, no texture, no sense of the actual Italy. It’s the Italy of American tourists who never leave the resort. This polished aesthetic works against the film's supposed themes of regret and authenticity. How can we take Jay’s existential crisis seriously when the hardest thing he has to deal with is which vintage wine to pair with his truffles?

Noah Baumbach is known for his sharp, literate dialogue. The Squid and the Whale and Marriage Story crackled with the energy of real people hurting each other with words. Jay Kelly sounds like an AI was fed a diet of New Yorker cartoons and self-help books. Characters don’t talk to each other; they declare themes at one another. "You’re not a person, Jay," Billy Crudup says in a bar. "You’re a collection of light and shadow projected on a wall. You stopped being a man when you started being a star."

Who talks like that? Real humans don't speak in thesis statements.

Later, Jay tells his daughter: "I spent my life pretending to be other people because I was afraid of being myself." It’s the kind of line that belongs on an inspirational poster in a dentist's office, not in a serious drama from an auteur director.

Jay Kelly is a film that thinks it is a deep meditation on the cost of fame, the passage of time, and the intricate bonds of male friendship. In reality, it is a two-hour pity party for a demographic that needs it the least. It is a movie that fundamentally misunderstands its audience. It expects us to sympathize with a man who has everything, simply because he feels sad about having everything. It asks us to find profundity in the image of George Clooney crying at his own highlight reel.

There is a moment near the end of the film where Jay and Ron sit on a terrace overlooking a vineyard. The sun is setting, the music is swelling, and they share a look of silent understanding. It is technically perfect filmmaking. The lighting is divine, the acting is subtle, the composition is flawless. And I felt absolutely nothing.

Jay Kelly is a 1-star disaster not because it is incompetent, but because it is irrelevant. It is a film that has nothing to say, and it says it very, very loudly. Skip it. Watch Marriage Story again. Watch Punch-Drunk Love. Heck, watch Batman & Robin. At least that movie had the decency to know it was a joke.

A Note on the Release:

This review is based on the theatrical cut. Rumors of a 3-hour "Director's Cut" hitting Netflix later this year are circulating. Consider this a warning: Life is short. Don't spend three hours of it on this.