Jay Kelly review: George Clooney’s movie-star odyssey is wistful and romantic, but a bit thin

An ageing movie star (George Clooney) embarks on an impromptu journey across Europe in search of who he really is.

In the most revealing scene in Jay Kelly, the handsome, salt-and-pepper-haired titular movie star (George Clooney) stands in the cramped toilet of a moving train, staring into a mirror. Hesitates the names of actors like Cary Grant and Clark Gable aloud before reciting his own name with a different intonation each time, as if trying to unearth a performance as himself with every repetition. It relates directly to the film’s opening with a quote by Sylvia Plath: “It’s a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It’s much easier to be somebody else, or nobody at all.”

With the exception of last year’s Wolfs and, of course, those Nespresso ads, these days Clooney spends more time in the director’s chair than in front of the camera. But in the sparkling, somewhat slight Jay Kelly, tailor-made for him by director/co-writer Noah Baumbach and co-writer/star Emily Mortimer, Clooney reminds us that he remains the consummate movie star; one of a dying breed.

For all the film’s loveliness, it’s also rather thin.

After the lacklustre response to 2022’s White Noise, Baumbach returns to familiar territory here, crafting a coming-of-middle-age comic drama influenced by Fellini’s 8½. Jay Kelly is beloved by all, especially his loyal but long-suffering manager Ron (Adam Sandler) and publicist Liz (Laura Dern). His younger daughter Daisy’s (Grace Edwards) departure for a European jaunt before college confronts him with his absence as a father, and the question of who he is when the cameras aren’t rolling. With his staff in tow, he ditches a film shoot to chase her to Tuscany, gamely slumming it on a train full of awed normies, getting the chance to play the hero they all think he is.

As one might expect from this combination of cast, creatives and location, it’s all immensely charming. The co-dependency between Jay and Ron feels genuine and Sandler’s warm, vulnerable performance might grant him awards glory. Having already delivered for Baumbach in 2017’s The Meyerowitz Stories, it’s a pleasure to see him flex his dramatic muscles again here as a man who has constructed his entire identity around his love for his friend, wry smiles concealing a real desperation to be truly seen and understood.

Yet for all the film’s loveliness, it’s also rather thin. Interwoven flashbacks (that Jay physically steps into) reveal that he got his big break by screwing over his best friend (Billy Crudup), and why he’s estranged from his older daughter (Riley Keough), little of which delivers the drama you’d hope it would.

Fun running gags playing on Jay’s lack of self-awareness don’t manage to disguise that Baumbach’s customary archness is absent here, as if he’s too nervous to make Clooney look bad, even through this fictional lens. But Jay Kelly is wistful, romantic and unashamedly old-fashioned, and would be a fitting swansong for Clooney as an actor, were he to retire.

It’s a real pleasure to be whisked across the world by Baumbach, but perhaps this cinematic glass of Prosecco goes down rather too easily.