Jay Kelly (2025) Dir: Noah Baumbach

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Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the winner of the 'Netflix Original Awards-Bait Film Of The Year'. Okay, but in all seriousness, when I saw the trailer for this Netflix comedy drama, which was directed by Noah Baumbach, and written by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer, the first thing I thought of was that this was Netflix's yearly attempt at bagging a best-actor Oscar. This may sound cynical, but when you look back at some of the dramas Netflix has produced in recent years - cough, cough; 'Maestro', cough, cough; 'Blonde' - you may see where my concern arose.

The cinematography didn't quite work for me. The locations were interesting, sure, but there was no life in the way most of it was shot. I didn't feel anything when I looked at the composition, the lighting, or anything else for that matter. The soundtrack was pleasant, but, much like the majority of the film, a little too easy to forget about. Nothing about the film stood out, beyond the litany of famous faces that composed its cast.

The screenplay was cute but clumsy; the way a toddler is when they're teetering and tottering towards one of their parents. It almost made me like it. Almost. More than anything else, it felt like I was watching wishy-washy nonsense, though. The emotional impact of the story relies very heavily on the audience feeling sorry for an egocentric actor who did and continues to do irritating and selfish things. It only worked a fraction of the time - the rest of the time it left me rolling my eyes.

George Clooney's performance was fine, even quite good at times, but it was dogged by his and the film's apparent need to insist upon itself to the audience. The whole film, and Cooney's acting in particular, felt like a cheesy wink and a nudge to the audience, and that just didn't work for me, I'm afraid. Again, I didn't dislike his acting, but it screamed 'this is my Oscar crying scene', and not in a good way.

Adam Sandler actually compelled me more than Clooney for large parts of this film, and, but for a better screenplay, could have given a legitimately very good performance. Sandler often goes under the radar for his dramatic acting abilities, but he can pull out a performance when he wants to. My favourite performance of the film was actually from the extremely talented Laura Dern, however. It killed me that she featured all too briefly, especially because her character was also comfortably the most interesting in the whole film.

There were a litany of other performances worth at least a quick mention, with the most notable being that of Billy Crudup, Riley Keough, and Jim Broadbent, whilst the trio of Grace Edwards, Stacy Keach, and Patrick Wilson, also added value to the film with their respective roles.

Overall, this was unfortunately a dramatic and rather self-aggrandizing swing and a miss for me. It touched very lightly on some legitimately compelling storyline beats, but never explored any of them to anything like a satisfying amount. The film could have made a great statement about cost of fame, the huge egos in Hollywood, and the co-dependent, one-sided nature of relationships in the industry, but instead it barely scratched the surface, and suffered greatly as a result.