Veteran filmmaker wide of the mark in dated political comedy drama

Review by

Sarah Watt

Film reviewer·New Zealand Listener·

18 Dec, 2025 04:58 PM2 mins to read

Sarah reviewed for the Sunday Star Times until 2019. After a career change to secondary school teaching, she now she works in alternative education with our most disadvantaged rangatahi.

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She’s going to make it after all: Emma Mackey as Governor Ella McCay. Photo / Supplied

Ella McCay, directed by James L Brooks, is in cinemas now

Among Hollywood’s still-active directing octogenarians – Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott – 85-year-old James L Brooks might look like yesterday’s man. Ella McCay, his first film as director in 15 years after How Do You Know?, certainly
confirms it. If the film feels stuck in the past, it’s set there, too. Its story of a young female politician and her colourful family being thrust into the spotlight takes place in a pre-Obama, recession-hit America of 2008.

The director of Terms of Endearment (which won him three Oscars in 1983) and Broadcast News (seven nominations in 1988), still had it by the late 90s with the Jack Nicholson-led As Good As It Gets. The co-creator of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-offs, as well as Taxi, Brooks remains the producer of TV phenomenon The Simpsons and the 2007 The Simpsons Movie, his biggest box office hit. In this new film, he’s cast Marge’s voice actor, Julie Kavner, as secretary Estelle and the film’s unnecessary narrator.

But Brooks’ big comedy-drama about the titular newbie US governor trying to save the world and survive her family, is neither funny nor dramatic and her political aims are mostly treated as idealistic and exhausting.

Thirty-something McCay is played by lovely 29-year-old British-French actor Emma Mackey (Sex Education) in what should be her big Hollywood break. Her character is thrust from lieutenant-governor of a fictional state into the top job when the incumbent (Albert Brooks, Broadcast News) departs. Ella must juggle her new responsibilities with the needs of self-involved husband Ryan (Jack Lowden, Slow Horses) and other familial distractions.

The old-fashioned story involves divorcing parents, a too-smart teenager, and a cute but weird little brother, while a feisty Aunt Helen (played by go-to feisty relative Jamie Lee Curtis) is there to provide punchlines and homespun advice. But if there was an ensemble prize for most acting this award season, then the Ella McCay cast would be a contender, helped by an annoying Woody Harrelson as McCay’s estranged dad.

In fairness, they are working from a Brooks script that is as duff as Homer’s favourite brew. No, they don’t make movies like this any more. And with good reason.

Rating out of five: ★½

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