Jay Kelly: What the reviews say about Noah Baumbach’s new comedy starring George Clooney
Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly has debuted at the Venice International Film Festival, and the reviews have started to pour in. The film stars George Clooney as the titular character, a famous movie star who embarks on a whirlwind and unexpectedly profound journey through Europe with his devoted manager Ron (Adam Sandler). Along the way, both men are forced to confront the choices they’ve made, the relationships with their loved ones, and the legacies they’ll leave behind. So, what do the critics think?
THR‘s David Rooney had plenty of praise for George Clooney, who is “playing a deeply flawed character who has considerable overlap with his own public persona,” but he says the script lets him down. “You might wonder if Jay has been humbled in any lasting way by the string of defections among those meant to be sharing in his celebration. This might have worked better if Jay had been an unapologetic dick rather than a man almost endearingly oblivious to his privilege,” he said. “No amount of tender underscoring from composer Nicholas Brittel can make us feel much for his sudden loneliness since Clooney’s natural charisma is like armor. It makes the movie toothless and insincere.“
Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman had hopes that Jay Kelly “would do for movie stardom what Marriage Story did for divorce,” but for all its enjoyable qualities, “it wants to examine a celebrity who’s soulful and charismatic enough to be played by George Clooney, and to reveal his hidden colder side. To that end, I’d say it does…and it doesn’t.“
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Deadline‘s Pete Hammond said Clooney “does some of his best screen acting in this film, which offers a tricky role for a genuine modern movie star to be convincing playing a genuine movie star.” He also thought Sandler was “simply great” as Ron. “I know a few Rons in this business, and Sandler nails it. So does [Laura] Dern, who is completely convincing as a personal publicist at wit’s end. She obviously has been around a few in her time.“
The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw wasn’t a fan, saying the film “pirouettes into territory already trodden by Fellini’s 81/2 and Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories, but smothers everything in a bland, Tuscan sunshine-syrup. The sharp realisations about the cruelty of show business are cancelled by gushes of Hollywood self-adoration and self-forgiveness and jokey non-comedy.“
IndieWire‘s David Ehrlich said, “I find it hard to begrudge any of the great filmmakers for going soft as they get older — we should all be so lucky to reach the back half of our lives and feel as if the world was a kinder, more loving place than we once thought. On the other hand, watching a director as scabrous as Noah Baumbach make a movie as tenderly indrawn as ‘Jay Kelly’ can feel like watching a ginsu knife get dulled into a loofah.“
Jay Kelly will be released in select theaters on November 14, followed by a global release on Netflix on December 5.
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