Movie Review: Ella McCay

By John Corrado

Aside from his role as co-creator and producer of The Simpsons, which is certainly enough of a legacy on its own, James L. Brooks is also best known for writing and directing a trio of beloved, all-timer romantic dramedies with Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News and As Good As It Gets.

Brooks hasn’t directed a movie in over fifteen years, since his presumed-to-be swan song How Do You Know in 2010. Instead, he seemingly passed the torch to a younger filmmaker, Kelly Fremon Craig, by producing her two (excellent) films The Edge of Seventeen and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

Now, at 85-years-old, Brooks returns to the director’s chair with Ella McCay. It’s a curious but not entirely unenjoyable late-career project that feels like it has been in-development since around 2008, when the story is set. The film is tonally uneven, never fully finding its footing as romantic comedy, family drama, or political satire, despite mixing elements of all three.

The sharpness of Brooks’ earlier films feels frustratingly diluted. But there are still a few flashes of his wit and warmth. This is also a bit of a legacy project for Brooks. Julie Kavner, the voice actress behind Marge Simpson, lends her familiar voice to the film as the narrator, while Broadcast News star Albert Brooks is featured as a senior politician affectionately known as Governor Bill.

Emma Mackey stars in the film as the plucky titular character Ella McCay, a young lawyer serving as Bill’s lieutenant governor. But Bill is about to accept a job in the incoming presidential administration (Obama’s name is never mentioned), which means that McCay is ushered into the job of Governor of this unnamed state in her early thirties, despite still figuring things out in her own life.

Ella was raised by her aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), after her dad Eddie (Woody Harrrelson) cheated on mom (Rebecca Hall) and stepped out on the family. This is mostly explored in flashbacks (where Mackey looks much too old to play the character as a teenager, but I digress). Dad’s reemergence, a possible personal scandal brewing, and a husband (Jack Lowden) who expects to play more of a role in his wife’s political ascent, all threaten to throw a wrench into Ella’s new job.

Brooks weaves in a number of story threads and side characters, including Kavner as Ella’s elderly secretary Estelle, who is also narrating the story, and Kumail Nanjiani as her faithful driver Trooper Nash. There’s also Ella’s agoraphobic younger brother Casey (Spike Fearn), who is pining after his ex-girlfriend (Ayo Edebiri). The subplot with Edebiri’s character feels especially underserved in the larger narrative, with the young actress being entirely underused.

The amount of disparate story threads often makes this feel like it was condensed from a number of different ideas. The film plays like a few separate story drafts that have been stitched together, and the 114 minute running time isn’t nearly enough for them all to be given equal depth. As such, Ella McCay leaves a lot of loose ends, and the film never quite finds the right tone.

As a political satire, it feels like an Obama-era relic that is stuck in 2008. The political stuff is pretty toothless and overly idealistic, especially considering how much the American political landscape itself has changed in the ensuing years since the start of the first Obama administration. It’s not really a romantic comedy either, despite being advertised as one. The quirky handling of Casey’s mental health issues is also a far cry from the far more sensitive As Good As It Gets.

It’s uneven, and not even close to James L. Brooks’ best works. The hints of Broadcast News make it more frustrating, as the film plays with the feeling that it could have been something far better. The dialogue can feel overwritten, and various plot points are either left unresolved or wrap up too neatly. But, even if Ella McCay registers as a bit of a disappointment, especially in comparison to Brooks’ own iconic works, the film is still somewhat entertaining to watch.

Mackey is generally enjoyable in the leading role, even if her character is never fully believable as a governor, and Curtis is playing a version of a character we’ve seen from her before, but does it well. It doesn’t hold a candle to the James L. Brooks classics that preceded it, but there can still be a sort of simple, old school charm to Ella McCay in its best moments that can’t be denied. It feels like a movie out of a different era. I just wish it were a little better overall.