Film Review: JAY KELLY: George Clooney is Oscar Nomination Bound in Noah Baumbach’s Smart Tale of the Measure of a Life [NYFF 2025]

Jay Kelly Review

Jay Kelly (2025) Film Review from the 63rd Annual New York Film Festival, a movie directed by Noah Baumbach, written by Emily Mortimer and Noah Baumbach and starring George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Emily Mortimer, Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Greta Gerwig, Isla Fisher, Laura Dern, Riley Keough, Eve Hewson, Jim Broadbent, Stacy Keach, Grace Edwards, Alba Rohrwacher, Charlie Rowe, Ruby Stokes and John Macmillan.

George Clooney is at the top of his game in filmmaker Noah Baumbach’s return to form new picture, Jay Kelly. This is a movie about regret, hope and yearning for fulfillment after finding a certain level of success in life. Clooney plays Jay Kelly, a gentleman amongst the biggest actors working in Hollywood. As the film begins, he’s shooting a death scene for his latest picture where his character slowly crumbles to his death as his character’s pet dog comes over to him to mourn his passing. This scene is done a couple of times, but Jay still isn’t happy. He asks for one more take, but the director says he has the shot he needed. Jay is a perfectionist. He’s a diamond in the rough, and those in the rough are probably a bit jealous of his success.

Baumbach finds a great rhythm here in terms of the way he structures his story around Jay’s search for purpose in a distinguished life that has come at a cost to him. Jay’s daughters (Riley Keough and Grace Edwards) know that Jay does his own thing. They’ve known him long enough and find it a bit strange when Jay tries to change his spots, so to say, and be there for those he’s neglected over the years. A leopard can never truly change his spots, but he can try. Right?

Adam Sandler delivers a unique performance for the funnyman, playing Ron, Jay’s long-standing manager who is telephoned while trying to help his own daughter succeed at tennis. Jay finds himself in an odd situation. One day, he is greeted by an old-time friend, Timothy (Billy Crudup). Jay sort of brushes him off and then decides that he does, in fact, have the time to catch up with this old pal. Jay sends Ron on his way and soon discovers that, despite his talent, Crudup’s character, Timothy, holds a grudge against Jay for having a better career than the one he had. Things get a little creepy and Jay ends up calling Ron after he’s moved on to the next thing.

Ron wants to have Jay’s legacy honored even though Jay doesn’t initially want that. Jay wants to follow his daughter Daisy (Edwards) to Europe and things get a little complicated as Jay is clearly trying to embark on a journey that he may be a little too late in his life to successfully take. Jay once denied his filmmaker friend, Jimbo (Jim Broadbent), money to make a dream project about a prostitute and that friend dies one day. This event leads Jay to reconsider his life decisions and try to find the right ones moving forward which is easier said than done.

In a hilarious scene, Jay helps an elderly woman get her purse back after it is snatched by a thief on a train. Jay is brave and takes a big risk in the name of goodness and it’s a spontaneous choice that he may not have made as a younger man. This film takes Jay to interesting places as his sophistication may carry him far in the movie world that he has immersed himself in, but as a dad, he’s lost. Can he be found?

Clooney delivers a miraculous, defining performance of his own career as an actor. Clooney allows the audience to understand the character he plays and stay with him as he moves on to uncharted territory where the results will almost always respect him professionally more than personally. Clooney has never been so dignified on-screen and is a likely nominee for Best Actor come Academy Award nomination time.

Adam Sandler turns in remarkable work as the manager who gets more than just a cut of Jay’s pay, he gets a bond that was supposed to last forever, but at what emotional cost? Both Jay and Ron come to a crossroads in their lives and both performers nail their characters’ nuances to perfection. In a lesser year, Sandler would have been assured an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor. The end results of the friendship formed between these two characters is deeply moving.

As Jay’s daughters, Keough and Edwards get plenty of moments to shine and the audience can certainly feel for their characters’ situations and understand their issues with Jay as a dad. Billy Crudup is appropriately weird in his pivotal part in the picture while co-writer Emily Mortimer has a small role in the picture as well that is played nicely. It is Baumbach regular, Laura Dern, as Jay’s publicist, who gets some little moments to shine that make her one of the small details that really work terrifically in this ambitious and profound film.

Jay Kelly ends with a close-up of Jay. We learn that a life may be measured by what is done with it earlier in life as well as later in it. Jay may be making a last-minute attempt to rectify the wrongs of his past, but is it too late to salvage what he has lost along the way? Thankfully, Noah Baumbach doesn’t offer any easy answers to complicated questions. Instead, we take the journey with Jay and decide for ourselves as audience members a.) whether Jay has truly earned the recognition he has deserved professionally and b.) what was the cost of that recognition?. This is Noah Baumbach’s best film in years and Clooney and Sandler are at the top of their crafts with their delicate roles in this very thorough and thoughtful film.

Rating: 8/10

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