It is not an original idea to make a movie about a movie star. Think Notting Hill, The Bodyguard, T
It is not an original idea to make a movie about a movie star. Think Notting Hill, The Bodyguard, Tropic Thunder, America’s Sweethearts, A Star Is Born, Birdman, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Bowfinger. I could go on. The greatest film I ever saw about a star was Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s masterful All About Eve, even if that was set on Broadway. It came out the same year as another masterpiece set in the industry, Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, which showed the murky side of Hollywood when they decided they were done with you. “It’s the pictures that got small,” Norma Desmond utters after declaring she is still “big.”
Both are celebrating their 75th anniversary this year and remarkably are as fresh, even as perceptive, as when they were released. Eve still to this day shares the record for the most Oscar nominations with 14, winning six as Sunset had 11 nominations and won three, proving Hollywood loves stories about themselves.
I bet they are gonna love Noah Baumbach‘s latest, Jay Kelly, which is having its world premiere tonight at the Venice Film Festival and stars mega movie star George Clooney as mega movie star Jay Kelly, a man who sails along comfortable in his blinding fame — until he isn’t, setting off a personal journey to somehow find himself. The problem is Jay made it so large so early that he might never have known who he is except that persona of the star the audience sees, the characters he plays. But who is Jay Kelly?
It’s a story about identity and trying to sort things out. With a scenario that effortlessly changes tone from delicate comic situations to poignant drama (Baumbach wrote the script with Emily Mortimer, who also has a compact role), Jay Kelly in different ways for me also recalls a couple of classics not about actors but directors, at least in spirit, as it made me think at times of Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Preston Sturges’ sublime Sullivan’s Travels. Still, this one, in competition at Venice, manages to find its own identity in the movies-about-movies genre, making it fresh, sharp and quite welcome.
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The opening of the film appropriately is revealed to be on a large movie set, and we soon find out the intense dialogue is part of a scene, not real life, even if for a moment we think it is. Kelly does a perfect take, and they want to print, but in the first indication of insecurity, he asks to do it again. Oddly, Baumbach also is making his film about an actor asking to do it again, but in this case it is his life he fears he has missed. What went wrong?
Two events set off this crisis of conscience. His mentor, director Peter Schneider (Jim Broadbent), has just passed away, and an ancient acting friend from his earliest days, Timothy (Billy Crudup, excellent), has just turned up in a reunion that starts out warm but soon cuts right to the chase. It turns out a key audition that Timothy got, and for which Jay just tagged along, did not go well. Schneider, who was the director of the film, spots Jay and asks him to read. It all leads to Jay getting the role that began his career and, as it turns out, lifelong resentment by Timothy. We see this flashed back in a memory sequence with exceptionally well-cast younger actors Louis Partridge and Charlie Rowe doubling as Jay and Timothy, respectively.
Jay Kelly looks back a lot as he up and decides to ditch his next film and head off to Europe on a whim in order to catch up with his youngest daughter, Daisy (Grace Edwards), who is traveling with her boyfriend. When you are a gigantic star, such a spur-of-the-moment life decision doesn’t come uncomplicated, especially for his “team,” including his longtime manager Ron (Adam Sandler) and his harried publicist Liz (Laura Dern), who have no choice but to go with him.
A train sequence is brilliantly played and directed as they head to Paris and later Italy, where he is getting a tribute in Tuscany, an honor he had Ron turn down for him but now uses as a convenient excuse to upend his life and everyone in it. An older woman’s purse is stolen on the train, and Jay reverts to his movie-star persona and chases the culprit off the train and into a field, showing off his action credentials and making some inadvertent headlines along the way.
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It is a journey of self-discovery for a man millions think they already discovered. Jay actually is a good guy. He tried strenuous to be a present father (Riley Keough plays his older daughter), a good person to those closest including his exes, a dutiful son (Stacy Keach turns up in a fun extended cameo) and more. It all leads to an extraordinary sequence at the film festival tribute with Kelly emotionally watching his cinematic life passing by, no doubt wondering what he missed along the way. Clooney, watching a tribute reel of actual Clooney movie clips doubling for Kelly’s career, does some of his best screen acting in this scene, and for that matter in this film, which offers a tricky role for a genuine newfangled movie star to be convincing playing a genuine movie star.
That Jay Kelly offers him so much more than the surface of this man is the miracle of Baumbach’s film. Sandler is simply great as the suffering Ron, whose life is so intertwined in Jay’s that he has to break loose and reclaim his own identity. I know a few Rons in this business, and Sandler nails it. So does Dern, who is completely convincing as a personal publicist at wit’s end. She obviously has been around a few in her time. Among others in the huge cast, Patrick Wilson is amusing as a lesser star client of Ron’s who accepts the festival tribute after Jay initially turned it down, thus both now being feted. Alba Rohrwacher also is rewarded with some nice screen time here.
Linus Sandgren’s prosperous cinematography helps make this film look as gorgeously cinematic as you might hope, and. Nicholas Brittell delivers a lilting musical score. Producers are Baumbach, Amy Pascal and David Heyman.
Title: Jay Kelly
Festival: Venice (Competition)
Distributor: Netflix
Release Date: November 14, 2025 (theaters); December 5 (streaming)
Director: Noah Baumbach
Screenwriters: Noah Baumbach and Emily Mortimer
Cast: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Jim Broadbent, Patrick Wilson, Isla Fisher, Emily Mortimer, Alba Rohrwacher, Stacy Keach, Eve Hewson, Billy Crudup, Grace Edwards, Riley Keough, Louis Partridge, Charlie Rowe.
Running time: 2 hr 12 mins
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