Ella McCay, 2025.
Written and Directed by James L. Brooks.
Starring Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis, Woody Harrelson, Spike Fearn, Ayo Edebiri, Albert Brooks, Rebecca Hall, Jack Lowden, Kumail Nanjiani, Sheetal Sheth, Erica McDermott, Anthony Gaita, Julie Kavner, Becky Ann Baker, Joel Brooks, Troy Garity, Michael Balzano III, Kellen Raffaelo, Pamela Figueiredo, Tierre Diaz, and Joseph Brooks.
SYNOPSIS:
An idealistic young woman juggles her family and work life in a comedy about the people you love and how to survive them.
Presented as a true story about a fictional lieutenant governor preparing to become governor of “the state she was born in” (a withheld piece of information that only makes the political aspect of this story, which eventually becomes a credulity-straining liberal fantasy at quite possibly the worst time in the world to be releasing such films, that makes everything here feel more hollow and artificial), writer/director James L. Brooks return behind the camera with Ella McCay is pointless, often frustratingly and insensitively tone deaf, but not without some endearing character work. If the film is good for anything, it’s that it shows Emma Mackey can carry a movie even when surrounded by a tantalizing ensemble of veterans.
The eponymous Ella McCay is indeed a workaholic, idealist, and good-intentioned politician who just so happens to come from a dysfunctional family. Seen through the occasional flashback, it’s an environment that made her feel othered and abnormal as a teenager, but also further fueled her passion, though more in the sense of a heightened reason to get the hell away from these people. Her father, Eddie (Woody Harrelson), was forced to resign as a medical practitioner for engaging in sexual affairs with coworkers, cheating on his nameless wife (a completely wasted Rebecca Hall). After her mom died, the family uprooted to a new area, where Ella lived with her aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis). This is also around the time when she met her high school sweetheart and future pizzeria-owning husband, Ryan (Jack Lowden).
Now, as an adult and politician, Ella is about to climb the ladder to governor with Bill (Albert Brooks, always a delight to see in anything at this stage of his career) moving into a cabinet position. As such, the time seems perfect for Ella to put her actions where her mouth is and fight for legislation benefiting your moms and more. Unfortunately for her, that intelligence and fiery advocacy come across as a threat that could turn her own party members against her. Fictionalized it may be, it’s also safe to say the screenplay taps into some parallels about the Democratic Party. Even her mentor, Bill, gives some pushback, leaving room to question the friendship aspect of their dynamic.
There might have been something to Ella McCay as a film if it had stuck to messy political relationships and the roadblocks to passing legislation, but this is less about her as a character and more about the whirlwind dysfunction of her entire family that comes rampaging back into her life. Her father is back with a new psychiatrist partner, pleading that he is a changed man, but that this woman will only maintain a romantic relationship with him if he makes amends with his children. Then there is the impending scandal of Ella and her husband Ryan engaging in marital relations in a governor’s apartment that doesn’t technically belong to them, which gradually transitions into a thread that the perfect, supportive partner throughout her life is suddenly a jerk who was always the wrong person all along. Driving Ella around during all of this is Trooper Nash (Kumail Nanjiani), involving a bizarre subplot about his work partner being criticized for wanting overtime to do something nice with his kids on the weekend.
At one point, Ella reconnects with her now agoraphobic brother, Casey (Spike Fearn), which leads to one of those accidentally getting high sequences that are beyond overplayed. More baffling is that this, for some reason, leads to a stretch of following Casey around as he tries to make amends with a girlfriend (Ayo Edebiri) he hasn’t seen or spoken to in a year, out of embarrassment for fumbling the relationship.
Also in our ears, and occasionally in front of our faces throughout the film, is a narrator, Ella’s assistant (Julie Kavner), who doesn’t add much beyond arguably the film’s most charming and expressive performance. Even then, she’s making the legend of Ella McCay out to be something far more compelling than it actually is. For the most part, this is a rambling hodgepodge of re-emerging family dysfunction that isn’t as amusing as it thinks it is, considering topics of sexual harassment are being taken lightly, with a condition such as agoraphobia being treated absurdly seriously.
Not to mention it’s just plain brain-scrambling that a movie called Ella McCay is comfortable setting aside who she is and a look into her work for sitcom-style family conflict that, while it has the usual quirks and charm one would want from a James L. Brooks film, is also airless and doesn’t engage much.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
