Ella McCay (2025)
Ella McCay is a political comedy-drama written and directed by James L. Brooks, who is a co-creator of television's The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, and The Simpsons and who also directed the critically acclaimed movies Terms of Endearment (1983), Broadcast News (1987), and As Good as It Gets (1997). Sadly, Ella McCay is a complete misfire. It's like four undernourished movies rolled into one traumatic filmgoing experience.
The film is set in 2008, long before the completely unhinged current political climate, and idealistic lieutenant governor Ella (Emma Mackey) is rising to the role of governor. It's not all roses and sunshine, however, because there may be a sex scandal on the rise involving Ella and her husband Ryan (Jack Lowden). Ella also has to deal with her philandering father Eddie (Woody Harrelson) and her agoraphobic brother Casey (Spike Fearn). Don't worry, though. When the problems pile up, Ella can lean on her no-nonsense aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her driver Nash (Kumail Nanjiani).
Mackey is good and deserves a better movie, and Curtis has a few amusing moments, but the problem is that the movie is a mess. There are flashbacks that could have easily been explained through a few lines of dialog, unnecessary narration from Ella's secretary Estelle (Julie Kavner), and all the subplots, such as the father's new mysterious girlfriend and the brother's relationship with a girl, go nowhere. The sex scandal plot takes up very little of the movie's time, and there is no real tension associated with it.
It certainly doesn't help that the annoying music score by Hans Zimmer shifts between cutesy wackiness and Lifetime Movie melodrama.
It's just so
shocking that all the great talent behind Ella McCay made such a bad
movie.
