Real Talk: Sandler Is a Better Actor than Clooney in 'Jay Kelly'

Briefly, here are my thoughts on Noah Baumbach’s Netflix film Jay Kelly, starring George Clooney and Adam Sandler. It starts slow, annoyingly slow, and I didn’t think I was going to like it at all. But it blossoms by the end, and ultimately I’d describe Jay Kelly with sophisticated movie-critic terms like “pretty decent” and “almost moving.”

But real talk: Adam Sandler is better here than George Clooney. I don’t usually frame things that way because acting isn’t a competition, but I found Clooney’s protectiveness of Sandler’s abilities — and asking the crew not to call him “Sandman” — a little patronizing. Adam Sandler is a 59-year-old man and one of the most famous people on the planet. He’s beloved, he’s already made several “serious” films that were well received, and he doesn’t need Clooney to make sure he’s taken seriously. Let Sandler be the Sandman, for god’s sake.

Sandler also turns in a stronger performance than Clooney in Jay Kelly. That’s not a knock on Clooney, whom I genuinely like. He’s good here, too, and there are a few lines he really sells, like his response to a woman who says he plays himself in every role: “Have you ever tried playing yourself? It’s hard to do.”

But that’s part of the problem: This is meant to be a metafictional role, yet he’s not actually playing himself. He’s playing a Clooney-like figure who reaches the end of his career realizing he torched his friendships and sacrificed time with his family, only to find himself alone despite being universally recognizable.

From a metafictional standpoint, I don’t buy it. It’s not a barely disguised version of Clooney because the real Clooney has plenty of friends — he’s basically BFFs with Richard Kind — and he clearly adores his family. Read an interview: he’s beloved in the acting community. His performance is good, but I couldn’t separate the real Clooney from the metafictional one who insists it’s hard to play himself because the real guy is anything but a soulless vessel.

Sandler, though? He’s terrific. I often struggle with his dramatic turns because I can’t help thinking, “It’s Adam Sandler in a serious role.” But maybe because he’s the supporting character here, I completely bought him as the put-upon manager who sacrifices his family for Kelly because he so badly wants Kelly to respect him as a friend.

In the end, it’s really a movie about that friendship, and it works to the extent that it does because Sandler is the big-hearted soul of the film. Still, it might’ve worked even better if Noah Baumbach had leaned into the formula and allowed it to become a friendship rom-com with a big speech and a run through the airport instead of insisting on dramatic subtlety because he’s a serious director who refuses to give the audience the catharsis the movie keeps asking for. It would’ve been a better “Adam Sandler” film that it is a Noah Baumbach one.

I mean, great: now it’s “art” instead of “commerce,” but it’s still a George Clooney and Adam Sandler movie on Netflix. Don’t be afraid to give us a crowd-pleaser just because the Serious Director Guild (SDG) won’t respect you in the morning. Give us the tears instead of the half-hearted melancholy. The whole thing feels like a setup for a clever final line, but if Baumbach had swelled the score and given in just a little, it could’ve been a rousing crowd-pleaser instead of awards bait.