Jay Kelly 2025 * * * Stars

AND...CUT!

A film where George Clooney might be mirroring or even taunting his own real-life career as a Clark Gable-esque movie icon. Yeah I'm talking about 2025's Jay Kelly, one of those hard-line character studies that is about um, one Jay Kelly. I mean is Clooney's Jaybird going through a late, mid-life crisis? And does he like to travel by train so he can hobnob with the local denizens? And why do his daughters have the need to give him the tough love freeze out. "Look at you, you're the American dream." Oh fo sho George. Fo sho. 

So OK, with Jay Kelly you have helmer Noah Baumbach channeling lush direction a la splashy European locales, Altmanesque overlapping dialogue, and a few nifty tracking shots along the way. You want a PG-13 version of 2022's Babylon minus the usual debauchery and prolonged shenanigans? Well Jay Kelly might be right up your alley. You want a talky flick with a James L. Brooks-style script and a side persona played by Netflix's own best bud Adam Sandler just for kicks and giggles? Well Prego...it's in there with Jay Kelly.  

Rounding out at 132 minutes and complete with a lengthy, movie-within-a-movie sequence (remember '92's track-athon, The Player?), Jay Kelly is about famous trouper Jay Kelly (the Cloon-meister) and his manager Ron (Adam Sandler) halting production on their latest pic to head to Tuscany for some serious self-realization. 

Jay Kelly, well it probably needed an editor to tighten up clips of tapering-off jawing and excessive, absorbed preoccupying by various cast members (which include cameos by Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Stacy Keach, and Patrick Wilson). However, the vehicle has a dense, dramatic center and can sometimes leave you with a little lump in your throat. Also it caters heavily to Cloondog's naturalistic style of acting. Old world "Jay". 

Written by Jesse Burleson