Curator Watchlist
A reflective, often funny showbiz road movie with real sadness at its center, but it can feel too self-conscious and emotionally obvious for its own good. The strongest stretch is the relationship between the star and his manager, which gives the film more bite than its celebrity premise alone suggests.
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 2h 12m
Director: Noah Baumbach
Starring: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern
Famous movie actor Jay Kelly embarks on a journey of self-discovery, confronting both his past and present, accompanied by his devoted manager, Ron.
Noah Baumbach
George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern
A reflective, often funny showbiz road movie with real sadness at its center, but it can feel too self-conscious and emotionally obvious for its own good. The strongest stretch is the relationship between the star and his manager, which gives the film more bite than its celebrity premise alone suggests.
Jay Kelly is at its best when it stops admiring its own premise and lets the emotional damage surface. The movie understands the weird loneliness of being professionally adored and personally absent, and it finds its most affecting material in the manager who has spent years orbiting that emptiness.
Noah Baumbach’s touch is present in the anxiety, the self-justifying humor, and the ache of people who cannot quite say what they need to say. But the film is also more straightforward than his sharpest work, and some of its insights land with a little too much force instead of surprise.
Even so, the performances keep it alive, especially in the scenes where the movie turns from celebrity satire into a reckoning with wasted time. It’s a sad, polished, occasionally overfamiliar film that still earns its final emotional notes.
James (Schaffrillas) (3.5★) · 3662 likes
It's good, but there's an inescapable "woe is me" quality that never fully goes away even during Clooney's best scenes. It quickly becomes evident that the emotional core lies with Sandler's character, to the point where I had to question why the story wasn't about him. As a Baumbach fan I'm disappointed that the dialogue wasn't sharper and the message wasn't conveyed in a more subtle manner; it really isn't like him to turn in a script so standard. Credit
abdullah (3★) · 3582 likes
Ironic that netflix dropped a movie about the glory of movies and going to theatres the day they announced they could potentially ruin that.
zoë rose bryant (4★) · 3284 likes
“it’s got to have meant something.”“what if it didn’t?”crazy for this and sentimental value to release so close together, because they make for an almost impossibly perfect double feature - albeit one that might also murder the first daughters of flawed fathers “can i go again? i’d like another one.” fucking hell.
Patrick Willems · 2431 likes
A major addition to the train movie canon
Sydney🚀 (3.5★) · 2270 likes
Deeply, deeply sad movie about the sort of person you don’t want to shed tears for, so it works that it plays like A Christmas Carol for a solipsistic absent father and friend - “who will be at my tribute?” becomes “who will be at my funeral?” becomes a devastating reminder that we only get one go at this, and sometimes what you thought you would have to show for it doesn’t mean anything at all. Leave it to Adam
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celebrity and identity, regret, aging, fatherhood, work-life imbalance, friendship, legacy, self-discovery
drama, comedy-drama, Hollywood, road movie, bittersweet, melancholy, midlife crisis, regret, legacy, character study