Jay Kelly Should Win Adam Sandler the Oscar He Deserves

The following article contains minor spoilers for Jay Kelly, which just premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

We’ve always known that Adam Sandler has the range. His Happy Madison comedies more than prove his ability to fill up cinemas and Netflix queues by playing bumbling manchildren, but every so often, the actor pulls off a striking pivot: the lovesick toilet plunger salesman in Punch-Drunk Love, the overprotective dad in The Meyerowitz Stories, the high-rolling gambler in Uncut Gems. It’s thrilling to see when the Sandman breaks his pattern, and with Jay Kelly, he delivers one of his most subdued performances. It also happens to be one of his greatest.

Filmmaker Noah Baumbach seems to be especially adept at mining stellar turns from Sandler. In The Meyerowitz Stories, he was a sweet father prone to the occasional outburst, if only because he was caught in the crossfire of his dysfunctional family. Jay Kelly finds him operating at a similarly reserved level. He plays Ron, the longtime manager to the titular movie star. Jay Kelly, played by George Clooney, is a charismatic magnet, attracting attention everywhere he moves but deflecting the affection of his family in favor of chasing his next hit movie. He’s lonely but never alone, surrounded by a team that circles him like subservient vultures.

Although Jay’s celebrity inhibits his ability to have love and genuine relationships, Baumbach and Emily Mortimer’s thoughtful screenplay doesn’t absolve him. Occasional flashbacks illustrate how his ambition fuelled his selfishness long before he tasted fame, but his current notoriety has only amplified his worst tendencies. Ron believes he sees through that. He’s selfless to a fault, often rushing to his client’s aid at the cost of quality time with his wife (Greta Gerwig) and kids. And despite the protestations of Jay’s inner circle, he says the two are real, honest-to-god friends. They’ve known each other for years, Ron argues to Jay’s publicist Liz (Laura Dern). Jay has even been to his daughter’s birthday party. When Liz counters that Jay has never offered him the same invitation, it occurs to him that their relationship only goes one way. For all of his attempts at initiating closeness, at the end of the day Jay and Ron are still an actor and the manager that takes 15% of his paychecks, not buddies.

The beauty of Sandler’s moving performance is that you can see Ron’s joy and optimism drain from him. Initially, Ron is bubbly with optimism, calling Jay by the nickname “puppy” and never letting his stress show through his smile. But in one particularly heartbreaking scene, Ron confesses to Liz that he botched a marriage proposal because they had to help Jay—even just being in their employer’s orbit seems to have a corrosive effect. By the time Ron has woken up to the truth of their partnership, Jay looks so dejected that it’s as if he has physically shed the warmth from his body. In a movie that tends to lean a little too hard into sentimentality, Sandler’s earnestness rings true. If George Clooney is the star of Jay Kelly, Sandler is the film’s beating heart.

Even more exciting is that Jay Kelly could well be Sandler’s closest shot at Oscar glory. A24 tried and failed to secure the actor a nomination for Uncut Gems; Jay Kelly is a much easier sell to Academy voters. And though they’re certainly not perfect barometers, the prognosticators already have him firmly in their awards predictions. While we’re at it, let’s just say it: Adam Sandler, one of our most reliable and versatile actors, is long overdue an Oscar. If he wins an Oscar in the year of Happy Gilmore 2, that will just make the victory even sweeter.

This story originally appeared in British GQ.