‘Jay Kelly’ is an intriguing, lightly satirical drama – bound for Netflix but with a small theatrical run – and it’s very much built around the iconography of George Clooney, who is essentially playing a version of himself. Clooney’s character, Jay Kelly, is a beloved movie star who realizes, rather late in life, that he has spectacularly failed his daughters. In a moment of epiphany, he abandons a major film shoot – possibly his last – and sets off to track one of them down while she is holidaying in Italy. His entourage dutifully follows, as they always have.

We’re given a window into the strange bubble of celebrity: the way every whim is catered for, even whims he never knew he had. Kelly insists he doesn’t even like cheesecake, yet it appears wherever he goes – written into contracts he supposedly approved. He may be adored, but he’s also emotionally absent, defined by roles rather than by real relationships.

One of the film’s strongest moments sees his elder daughter confront him: she once inadvertently watched him play a perfect father on screen, only to realise that the man she saw on film bore no resemblance to the man who was never there for her in real life. It’s sharp, painful – and the film could perhaps have used more of that bite.

There are playful touches: Clooney steps through scenes as if walking back into his own past, revisiting auditions and realizing how often he advanced his career at others’ expense. It edges toward ‘A Christmas Carol’-style reckoning – ghosts of career choices and damaged relationships returning to haunt him.

But the film ultimately remains gentle, even forgiving. It suggests Kelly has brought joy to countless strangers, even if his private life has been a mess. In one scene, he’s mid-crisis on a train but immediately slips into hero mode when a handbag is snatched – and the carriage erupts in applause. It’s contrived, but that’s the point: his life has become one long performance.

Visually, the third-act shift to sun-drenched Tuscany doesn’t hurt – it doubles as a glossy showcase for Clooney’s enduring movie-star allure. Yet that’s also the film’s limitation: it circles the idea of a man with no real identity beneath the roles, without ever cutting too deep.

Still, ‘Jay Kelly’ is a charming, self-aware riff on celebrity mythmaking – a redemption story that only lightly scolds its star while basking in everything that makes him so watchable.