{"id":342004,"date":"2025-12-11T00:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T00:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/342004\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T00:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T00:04:07","slug":"james-l-brooks-misbegotten-frank-capra-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/342004\/","title":{"rendered":"James L. Brooks’ Misbegotten Frank Capra Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBill Clinton was elected governor at an impressively young 31. Sarah Huckabee Sanders achieved the same feat when she was 40. In \u201cElla McCay<\/a>,\u201d the title character ascends to her state\u2019s highest seat at the tender age of 34. \u201cTender\u201d is the operative word, as writer-director James L. Brooks<\/a> is too charitable a storyteller to give Ella (Emma Mackey<\/a>) fangs or the preternaturally thick skin anyone entering politics in the real world needs to survive in that sphere.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn what feels like a calculated stab at making a Frank Capra movie \u2014 more \u201cMr. Deeds Goes to Town\u201d than \u201cMr. Smith Goes to Washington\u201d in its bewildering disconnect from the real world \u2014 a precocious political upstart is distracted and ultimately dragged down by her dysfunctional family. Ella serves as lieutenant governor of an unnamed state, whose two most important policies are dissolving the phone bank (where politicians squander countless hours raising money, instead of listening to their constituents\u2019 concerns) and implementing an asininely assonant dental plan she calls \u201cTooth Tutors\u201d (designed to put proud smiles on everyone\u2019s faces).<\/p>\n

\n\tBrooks, bless his soul, really does believe that smiling makes the world a better place.<\/p>\n

\n\tOver a career that spans landmark television series (like \u201cThe Mary Tyler Moore Show,\u201d \u201cTaxi\u201d and \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d), Oscar-winning movies (from \u201cTerms of Endearment\u201d to \u201cAs Good as It Gets\u201d) and more than a few fiascos (like \u201cI\u2019ll Do Anything,\u201d the musical rom-com notoriously stripped of its songs), the architect behind so many appealingly imperfect characters has demonstrated an earnest commitment to seeing the best in people. Not \u201cthe devil\u201d of \u201cBroadcast News\u201d or Ella\u2019s \u201cdouchey\u201d dad and husband in this movie, but idealists, like \u201cJerry Maguire\u201d (which he produced), who stay true to their hearts in a world determined to corrupt them.<\/p>\n

\n\tToday, that world seems to be winning, which might explain why Brooks sets \u201cElla McCay\u201d back in 2008 \u2014 \u201ca better time\u201d when \u201cwe still liked each other,\u201d according to Julie Kavner\u2019s croaky voiceover (the same actress who plays Marge Simpson in Brooks\u2019 hit sitcom appears as Ella\u2019s smitten assistant Estelle). \u201cI\u2019m nuts about her,\u201d Estelle confesses at the outset, and she\u2019s obviously not alone: Brooks writes beautifully flawed characters, but it doesn\u2019t feel like a flaw for Ella to be a goody two shoes with impossibly high standards (and broken heels, per the movie poster).<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the less endearingly named Melvin Udall, Jack Nicholson once famously confessed, \u201cYou make me want to be a better man.\u201d Here, a worse woman probably would have been more interesting\/relatable than the girl-wonder Brooks gives us. Right up front, he flashes back to Ella in high school, when she comes home with an A+ paper, on which her teacher has written, \u201cYou can be a force for good\u201d \u2014 and she clearly takes that to heart. Around that time, Ella\u2019s optimism suffers a series of setbacks.<\/p>\n

\n\tHer father Eddie (Woody Harrelson) is fired for sexual indiscretions at work, and her mom Claire (Rebecca Hall) dies heartbroken and humiliated \u2014 but not before entrusting Ella to her aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis, whose comic timing is ideally suited to this unfiltered guardian) for her senior year of high school. Later we learn that the ballast holding back her ascent to success is a doting classmate named Ryan (Jack Lowden), a \u201cticking timebomb\u201d on her political career who rightly tells Helen, \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone is good enough for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatching a mid-tier James L. Brooks movie like this, in which every line of dialogue is polished within an inch of its life (i.e. to utter lifelessness, for better quotability), can feel like browsing through the greeting card section at your local drugstore. Brooks\u2019 characters speak in hyper-articulate aphorisms \u2014 like the belief of Ella\u2019s boss, ex-governor Bill Moore (Albert Brooks), that \u201cto get anything done, you need dumb people to feel less dumb.\u201d Some make you chuckle or sigh at their cleverness. Others evince groans. But none sound even remotely like human speech.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf everyone\u2019s so nuts about Ella, then why do \u201cpeople\u2019s ears clog\u201d anytime she starts to talk? Maybe it\u2019s just Helen, Estelle and Ella\u2019s dopey driver, Trooper Nash (Kumail Nanjiani), who share Brooks\u2019 faith in her. At Ella\u2019s inauguration as governor, she gives a long-winded speech about what she\u2019ll do in office. As the crowd zones out, it\u2019s doubtful Ella would win a proper election, and though Mackey (who once played Physicist Barbie opposite similar looking Margot Robbie) comes across as a flustered but otherwise capable adult woman. Ella McCay could be \u201cLegally Blonde\u201d overachiever Elle Woods\u2019 brunette counterpart.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Ella takes office, she must decide whether to cave to a reporter\u2019s blackmail demands. Her father has resurfaced (after being gone mere minutes in screen time) in search of forgiveness. And she seems needlessly worried about her younger brother Casey (Spike Fearn), who makes $2 million a year glued to his computer. None of this seems particularly salient to Brooks\u2019 main concern, of presenting Ella as a modern Mary Tyler Moore: a self-made success in a patriarchal system (and likely a role model for his female grandchildren).<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, everything about \u201cElla McCay\u201d feels outdated, from its take on politics \u2014 which, weirdly, goes against the Capra-esque notion that speaking one\u2019s mind can change the world. Brooks\u2019 best quality as a writer is the way he wears his heart on his sleeve, writing characters who do the same. But there\u2019s a clunkiness here that suggests test screenings or studio notes cost the movie key exposition (establishing why Ryan\u2019s a liability, for example, or explaining the cringey dynamic between Ella and her driver).<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s odd when you consider the number of scenes \u201cElla McCay\u201d would have better without \u2014 including the yikes profession-of-like between Casey and his ex Susan (Ayo Edebiri), which reveals the anxious young man doesn\u2019t require a girlfriend so much as a nurse. One thing\u2019s for certain: Brooks thinks they\u2019re all cute as can be, which is evident in every faux-spontaneous smirk and squint and scream. When that latter tension-releasing moment finally arrives, more than a few viewers may feel tempted to join in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Clinton was elected governor at an impressively young 31. Sarah Huckabee Sanders achieved the same feat when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[43857,43858,88,43859,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-342004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-ella-mccay","9":"tag-emma-mackey","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-james-l-brooks","12":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}