Noah Baumbach's Jay Kelly (2025)

Clooney, Sandler, Laura Dern:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXGOTiJY3nY

in before k3vin

Co-written by Emily Mortimer!

ky jelly

Jay Kelly obviously has the same cadence as George Clooney, but it also sounds like Gene Kelly.

he is an actooor in da movies

there's a perennial interest among the ho-polloi in what it must be like to be a rich famous actor. once again Hollywood wants to reassure us that it's a totally warped existence that's not much fun.

Looks a bit like Alexander Payne doing Danny Collins, but hey, charming actors, nice locations, I'm sure it's well written, so why not.

This is GIMMIE SOME OSCARS AF and I’ve never heard of Jay Kelly but why not, I’m down

Really I just want to see Clooney hit a double or a triple, it’s been a minute

Huh, I had to look up Danny Collins because I have *zero* memory of it. Pacino was even Globe-nominated! Weird.

Someone should program a series on actors playing characters that are essentially them or (to go in another direction) playing off their public personas - Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon, Peter Falk in Wings of Desire, Michael Keaton in Birdman, etc.

Realizing that I’ve only seen While We’re Young of NB’s features, a movie I finished but wasn’t into really

But whatever, I like this cast

preview makes the movie look annoying but at least i learned that stacey keach is still alive

While We’re Young was (I think) the first time I saw Adam Driver on screen and thought, as I have almost every time since, that I don’t quite understand why he’s a movie star

I spotted Mr. Driver in Spielberg's Lincoln in a bit part as a telegraph operator at the War Department. It came out a couple of years earlier. He was clearly not a movie star then, but landing a big role in a Star Wars flick makes anyone a movie star regardless of merit.

I was excited to see him in Lincoln because I'd been watching him on Girls, where he had a striking, unusual presence.

Reviews out of Venice are mixed.

Peter Bradshaw hated it: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/aug/28/jay-kelly-review-even-a-george-clooney-sizzle-reel-cant-save-this-dire-noah-baumbach-effort

James Redd liked it.

Saw it in 35mm this afternoon, thoroughly enjoyed it as I always do with Baumbach (skipped White Noise.

You should reconsider and watch it!

Considering I really really enjoy every other one of his that I've seen, guessing you're right!

looking forward to this a lot and planning to see next week. baumbach is basically undefeated for me, though I haven’t seen margot or white noise

Would have been funny if the montage was of Clooney but him acting in scenes from iconic Adam Sandler movies.

Somebody I know wanted to compare this with Sentimental Value, for obvious reasons.

justin chang p much did that in the NYer a couple of weeks ago

Will read now, now that I've seen both. Pretty hard NOT to go there, I guess.

See also
https://www.npr.org/2025/11/13/nx-s1-5604815/jay-kelly-and-sentimental-value-are-both-about-fathers-daughters-and-fame

Justin Chang piece is really good.

Also reminded me I was thinking there was a bit of North by Northwest in this.

man, I was disappointed by this. sentimental and unconvincing. a real shame given all the talent on hand

zero expectations for this after white noise and meyerowitz each being p bad & marriage story middling at best

clooneys not been in a good movie since……?

I love George Clooney as a public figure, so it pains me to say that his movies very rarely live up to his commendable artistic ambitions (ambitions I wish more people had - I always wondered if Brad Pitt was inspired to produce riskier films because of Clooney). During a roundtable with Film Comment, several participants (particularly Molly Haskell) said they don't find him interesting, maybe even boring, whereas they found Adam Sandler much more interesting even though he admittedly makes a lot of horrendously bad crap.

I was okay with The Meyerowitz Stories and to a lesser degree Marriage Story - they're not great films, but they're carried by excellent ensemble performances (Sandler, Dern, Stiller, Alda, etc.) I recall both coming out at a time when there was a lot of crap in theaters, so maybe I was more appreciative of something that wasn't complete garbage, but they're fine movies.

Last time I enjoyed George Clooney in a movie was Hail, Caesar! It's not a great movie, very uneven, but there are a few good parts that are hilarious.

Gravity may be the last movie he made that I'd call good, maybe even great, with the caveat that it only reaches its full potential in 3D IMAX. It can still be impressive at home, but diminishing its best attributes means there's less to drown out its weaker aspects.

Round table was at the Film Festival?

Nah, I meant this:

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/the-film-comment-podcast-nyff63-festival-report/

I am a huge baumbach stan — I’ve at least liked, and usually loved, every other film of his I’ve seen. I also love greta gerwig and am a big sandler believer, and given the basic WILD STRAWBERRIES structure this should have been my favorite film of the year. but it really did nothing for me. I thought the tone was so bizarrely uncharacteristic for a baumbach film, really nothing beyond the surface. clooney did his best

Clooney's best star performance and best star movie is Michael Clayton, which holds up despite the creaky plot mechanics. I find him a straight audience's idea(l) of what it must be like to play a Bogart/Holden part in the Obama era in which he peaked.

I don't enjoy his other Coen roles, but he's funny and surprisingly pathetic in Burn After Reading.

Great in Fantastic Mr Fox, possibly because you can't see him.

I like him in Descendants and Up in the Air, two not-great movies, where he has good chemistry with the younger leads. He's very good at "charismatic non-threatening loser uncle".

I think my fave Clooneys are still Soderbergh (Out of Sight, the first Ocean movie) and Three Kings.

I'd go with:

Out of Sight
Michael Clayton
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Three Kings
Ocean's Eleven

Yep that's the five for sure.

He needs another Soderbergh.

He’s a strange one in that I always enjoy him in stuff and want him to have the more massive career I feel he deserves, and yet there’s a big chunk of his filmography I haven’t gotten around to yet (which is why I’m holding off on making a favorites list).

Out of Sight is the one I’ve long meant to see, gotta make that happen soon; runner up is Three Kings.

Descendants and Up In The Air and Oh Brother etc never interested me really, I’d be seeing those for him and not themselves.

If I wanted to watch a Clooney flick I’ve previously seen right this minute (which won’t happen because I’m stuck working the day before Thanksgiving, would reach for one of these):

The American
Burn After Reading
Michael Clayton
Ocean’s Eleven

Out of Sight is the one I’ve long meant to see, gotta make that happen soon; runner up is Three Kings.

OK, yeah, you gotta watch those

And he has had a massive career imo; he has enough power and money to have stepped back since 2014.

That’s fair!

Some review recently mentioned that it's his and Laura Dern's first film together since Grizzly II: Revenge (1983).

Fantastic Mr. Fox and Three Kings is probably my two favorite films where Clooney plays the lead role.

But looking over his filmography, my three favorites did not involve him as a lead actor at all. The Thin Red Line is my favorite with him in the cast - his role was reduced to a couple of scenes (which is not too drastic considering what happened to most of the cast members). And he was an executive producer on Far From Heaven and A Scanner Darkly.

And he has had a massive career imo; he has enough power and money to have stepped back since 2014.

Casamigos Tequila, which he did on a lark, made him a BILLIONAIRE. He doesn't need to do anything ever again.

Reminds me of Steve Jobs, where most of his fortune actually originated outside of his main career focus (from a large stake in Pixar, which he kept even after he was no longer involved in the company).

Sources:

How Steve Jobs made his first billion and how Clooney made his.

This is lousy.

😞

Just watched it. I didn’t think it was terrible, but I agree it’s not very good. It has some surface charms, but the story and all of its plot points are just so hackneyed and on the nose. And I didn’t feel like it had anything interesting to say. Ye olde middlebrow Oscar bait.

All the surprise, warmth, and timing has gone out of Clooney.

The old-friend actor reminded me of Craig Wasson in Body Double.

Do you mean Billy Crudup? I was happy to see him, but the script made his character into a cariacature.

Oh no, I mean his old acting-class buddy. (Thought of it probably because Body Double has similar L.A. actors-taking-classes.)

The Brit actor playing Young Jay Kelly is a hottie.

Jay Kelly obviously has the same cadence as George Clooney, but it also sounds like Gene Kelly.

― jaymc, Tuesday, August 5, 2025 1:18 PM (four months ago) bookmarkflaglink

When I saw the trailer at Frankenstein, I thought it was some kind of weird late-life Gene Kelly biopic. It sounded to me like they were saying "Gene Kelly" but then the title card came up and it was "Jay Kelly". Does this movie have anything to do with Gene Kelly? I did a quick google search and there were not many people who pointed out the name similarity.

at a loss of words for what anyone involved in this movie was thinking. that no thought "lets just call the movie 'george clooney'" after that last 30 or so minutes boggles my head. movie screams bad actors involved. that green screen'd shot around the last 30 is utterly pointless for the narrative.

if i'm the raspberries people - this movie should be front and center

Got strong All That Jazz vibes from this movie

It wishes!

it was kind of funny that "Jay Kelly" is portrayed as some kind of cinematic giant in the film and then you see the reel at the festival with clips from like The Peacemaker and Leatherheads and shit (no Batman & Robin though you cowards)