The story of the new film “Jay Kelly” is about an aging, famous actor who experiences the highs and lows in his career as a successful movie star while trying to figure out if all of that fame and money was worth it, considering his divorce from his first wife, and his estrangement from his two daughters who hate him for abandoning them so many times while he traveled the world, acting in movies.

Jay Kelly (George Clooney) seems the perfect actor to play this part, due to his age and many years of fame in the acting profession. Kelly’s long-time agent, Ron Sukenick (Adam Sandler) is at odds much of the time with Kelly as they disagree about what the best movie roles that Kelly should play at this stage of his career. The other ongoing conflict is whether Ron and Jay are really friends or just business associates, because for many years, Jay has been paying Ron 15% of all of his earnings. This argument comes to a climactic conclusion at the end of the film. Adam Sandler is once again very good in one of his few serious acting roles, the last one being “Uncut Gems” (2019). Sandler should do more serious dramatic acting roles, rather than continue to make mostly unfunny comedy movies that for too much of the time, do not work.

There is some good dialogue and messages about life in this movie, especially in the many arguments between Kelly and his daughters, with Jay trying to convince his daughters and himself that he was not a bad father, he was just trying to do two things that could never coexist at the same time. Be a famous and wealthy actor and be there for his daughters when they were young.

There is an argument and fight between Kelly and a mostly failed acting friend (Billy Crudup) from years ago, that is told through the many flashbacks in this film, as Kelly went on an audition to read with his friend and then wound up getting the important part. Part of the acting profession, due to its constant rejection and precarious financial reality is the extreme jealousy of so many very talented actors who just never get their lucky break.

This movie has a large number of well-known actors, including Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough,
Stacy Keach, Isla Fisher and Greta Gerwig, the wife of the director and co-writer of this film, Noah Baumbach.

The conclusion of this movie is about a major tribute to Jay Kelly in Italy, and the train ride Jay took to get through the many towns and villages in Italy. The tribute showed some movie scenes in the career of George Clooney, and not new scenes for his fictional character in this story.

Mainly for the life messages and solid acting in this film, I do agree with the 79% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and do recommend it.