Ella McCay Review

Ella McCay

20^th Century Studios

Directed by James L. Brooks

Written by James L. Brooks

Starring Emma Mackey, Jaime Lee Curtis, Albert Brooks, Spike Fearn, Woody Harrelson, Rebecca Hall, Ayo Edebiri, Kumail Nanjiani, Jack Lowden, Julie Kavener and Joey Brooks

Rated PG-13

An idealistic young woman juggles her family and work life in a comedy about the people you love and how to survive them.

James L. Brooks has been a mainstay of American comedy for over 50 years from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Taxi, Broadcast News, Terms of Endearment, The Simpsons and more. He has won numerous awards for his work including Oscars for As Good as It Gets. With that impressive resume of works, my interest was piqued to see his latest film which he both wrote and directed not only because of his pedigree, but also the stellar cast assembled to bring it to life.

Unfortunately, Ella McCay was a huge misstep in almost every conceivable way.

Ella McCay is a lot of things and none of them are good. It’s a political film with no teeth, opinion or ideas. It’s a drama with no stakes. It’s a comedy with no laughs. It’s a family film with no heart.

Ella McCay is a young woman played by Emma Mackey who is thrust into the governorship of her home state after the previous governor is offered a cabinet position. Other than seemingly boring her party and colleagues with her policy proposals, there seems to be nothing that she is either for or against. She wants things but is never shown putting in the work necessary to achieve them and her neuroses regarding her personal life and family are the only subjects that ever get brought up regarding her life at all both personally and professionally. Mackey is fine as Ella and plays the role well, but there is nothing for her to do other than react to the ridiculously low stakes problems she perpetuates throughout the movie.

The only political scandal she faces is using an apartment provided for her by the state to have sex with her own husband in. I wanted there to be something comical in that reveal, but there is no comedy to be had in this movie. It’s the lowest of stakes and the fact that it’s treated as a possible career ending scandal is not laughable, it’s intellectually insulting to the audience. The husband is question, Ryan, played by Jack Lowden is so unflinchingly stupid that you wonder how these two ever got together and the only explanation given in the film points towards a lapse in judgement on Ella’s part that could have been linked to her relationship with her father, played by Woody Harrelson, but never does. It’s one of several plot threads that seem to have started but never finished in Brooks’ script.

Spike Fearn plays Ella’s brother Casey who seems to be the only person she has ever really cared for, but he has grown into a shut in who laments a failed relationship with Susan (Ayo Edebiri) that Ella glosses over to armchair diagnose him as either autistic or agoraphobic. His story goes nowhere as well and his resolution with Susan is not only cringe-worthy but a waste of the talents of Edebiri. Any other actress could have been serviceable in that role, but I expected more from her when she came on screen and she gave what she had to work with; nothing.

Jamie Lee Curtis plays Ella’s Aunt Helen who is there to ground her and give her someone who is fiercely protective of her, but what is there to protect? Helen wants what’s best for Ella, but no one around her, including Ella herself, seems to want anything. The rest of the supporting cast seem to fall into the same category. Trooper Nash (Nanjiani) seems to be her only real friend in the world, but he doesn’t contribute anything to her life, she seems uninterested in his and, like everyone else in this film, seems to exist only to protect Ella McCay. From what? No idea.

Julie Kavner plays Ella’s personal assistant, Estelle and narrates the film. Honestly, if the film was about her reactions to the mounting pile of nothing going on around her, you might have had something interesting on the screen. Alas, everyone in the film serves to fuel the story of a woman who has nothing to say and nothing to do. There are so many wasted performances in this film from Rebecca Hall as Ella’s mother to Woody Harrelson as her father Eddie who has some drama regarding his infidelity that never goes anywhere as he chases Ella throughout the movie trying to make amends. Even Albert Brooks, a mainstay of James L. Brooks’ filmography, is wasted in his role of Governor Bill. He offers nothing to the film, his role or Ella as a character.

There are so many moments in this film that feel half done. Like there was something Brooks wanted to say with this movie and these characters but never got around to. It meanders constantly from one non-event to another and doesn’t bother to give the audience a compelling slice of life moment or character to care about as it does. It wants to be clever and have heart but never establishes any of those things either in the characters, their interactions or circumstances. Ultimately, it seems to boil down to a group of people unnecessarily working hard to protect a woman whose problems could have been resolved with therapy rather than dragging everyone around her into a quagmire of mediocrity.

Ella McCay is not a good film. It’s also not a bad film. It’s an exercise in nothing. It’s a drowsy, emotionless film that says nothing, reveals nothing and serves nothing for anyone watching it. Visually it’s fine and the acting is serviceable, but this movie has nothing to say. It, in no way, justifies its existence because it and its characters are just that, characters. There are no people in this movie. Only characters filling slots and saying lines because there is no imagination at play in any frame of this movie and the only feeling I had at the end of watching it is sadness because I kept hoping for something and was constantly disappointed.