{"id":342026,"date":"2025-12-11T00:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T00:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/342026\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T00:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T00:25:07","slug":"ella-mccay-review-emma-mackey-battles-political-strife-wooden-script","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/342026\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Ella McCay’ review: Emma Mackey battles political strife, wooden script"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI can\u2019t trust my brain right now,\u201d says our hero, Ella, deep into James L. Brooks\u2019 bafflingly disjointed, uneven, unfunny and illogical \u201cElla McCay.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

And finally, nearly two hours into a perplexing muddle of a storyline, we have some clarity of thought. No, dear, we want to tell Ella, played by the lovely Emma Mackey, who is truly the only reason to watch any of this. No, your brain is fine (and by the way, what a depressing line to put in the mouth of your most intelligent character \u2014 a hard-working woman in politics). It\u2019s your script you can\u2019t trust, Ella! Run away from it. Now.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to understand how \u201cElla McCay,\u201d the first original feature from writer-director Brooks in 15 years, goes so utterly haywire. Is this really the same mind that wrote the memorable \u201cBroadcast News\u201d? \u201cTerms of Endearment\u201d? \u201cAs Good As It Gets\u201d? We get a bit of a hint in the studio\u2019s press notes, which mention that Brooks began his script \u201cwithout a specific storyline in mind.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hmm. Perhaps that (unintentionally) explains this tangle of half-baked characters and subplots \u2014 each more head-scratching than the next, but also boring \u2014 and an ending that\u2019s unbelievable, by which we mean not believable. What\u2019s even less believable is that smart supporting actors like Jamie Lee Curtis, Ayo Edebiri, Woody Harrelson and Rebecca Hall didn\u2019t walk out in protest of a lack of coherence. (Well, actually, Hall is gone in a matter of minutes.)<\/p>\n

The main action takes place over three days in 2008, in an unnamed state. An aggressively folksy Julie Kavner as narrator tells us Ella is a great person, and super-bright, and at 34, one of the youngest people to serve as lieutenant governor.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also a moral compass \u2014 both in the dog-eat-dog world of politics, where she just wants to pass good laws that help good people \u2014 and in her messed-up family. This family includes her weaselly father (Harrelson, intermittently amusing) who, in a flashback to when Ella was 16, loses his job in a sexual harassment scandal.<\/p>\n

Soon after, when Ella\u2019s mother (Hall, wasted) tells her that Dad is moving the family to California, Ella insists on staying put, at her school. She\u2019ll live with her loyal and loving Aunt Helen (Curtis), who runs \u2014 of course! \u2014 the diner next door. <\/p>\n

Flash forward 18 years, and Ella is summoned by her governor boss (Albert Brooks).<\/a> He tells her he\u2019s in line for a Cabinet position, which means Ella would be interim governor. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t get this any other way,\u201d he notes, helpfully,<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one prickly problem. Ella is enmeshed in scandal; she\u2019s been having amorous relations, with her own husband, at lunchtime, in a room that\u2019s technically state property. (Yep, this is the best scandal they could come up with.)<\/p>\n

Also, there\u2019s a reporter who knows this, and he\u2019s trying to extort her in exchange for better access (to what, is unclear). Her husband is the one handling it. And so we flash back to high school to meet Ryan, who seems nice enough (but truly ridiculous as a high school student \u2014 there clearly was no de-aging budget). <\/p>\n

Anyway, Ryan (Jack Lowden) is now poised to become the state\u2019s first gentleman. We can see how Ella likes his easy good looks. But then, poof, he suddenly becomes a total jerk and we can\u2019t believe Ella would even think to be married to such a cad. But there\u2019s a lot here that we wouldn\u2019t think would happen.<\/p>\n

So Ella becomes governor. Yay! But Ryan is peeved to be sidelined. In a quickly abandoned subplot involving his mother, he threatens to leave Ella unless she allows him to co-govern. If only Ella would listen to Helen, who tells her, in advice that\u2019s ignored, that Ryan is \u201ca ticking time bomb in your life.\u201d Which just might be the one decent line given to poor Curtis in the whole movie.<\/p>\n

Then we have the strange story of Ella\u2019s agoraphobic younger brother, Casey (Spike Fearn) and his former would-be girlfriend, Susan (Edebiri). In a long sequence that feels like it comes from nowhere, just like the subplot about the state troopers and the overtime \u2014 don\u2019t ask! \u2014 Casey works up the courage to find Susan and ask her to be his girlfriend. The talented Edebiri almost makes your ticket price worthwhile \u2014 she\u2019s adorable. But the scene is ludicrous.<\/p>\n

Finally, somebody just says \u201cthis script is a mess.\u201d Oh, wait \u2014 that\u2019s just the scribble in my screening notebook.<\/p>\n

Anyway, it all comes to a denouement in a confrontation with Ella\u2019s political opponents. We won\u2019t reveal the specifics, but soon after, when Ella and Helen have a screaming session in the living room \u2014 you know, just for fun \u2014 it\u2019s tempting to join in.<\/p>\n

Like them, we\u2019re confused. We\u2019re annoyed. And we\u2019re not getting these two hours back.<\/p>\n

\u201cElla McCay,\u201d a 20th Century Studios release, has been rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association \u201cfor strong language, some sexual material and drug content.\u201d Running time: 115 minutes. One star out of four.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI can\u2019t trust my brain right now,\u201d says our hero, Ella, deep into James L. Brooks\u2019 bafflingly disjointed,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[171530,2224,66029,43858,88,26806,139498,20055,171529,171532,171531,10815,206,171351,15324,127805],"class_list":["post-342026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-albert-brooks","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-ayo-edebiri","tag-emma-mackey","tag-entertainment","tag-film-reviews","tag-jack-lowden","tag-jamie-lee-curtis","tag-jim-brooks","tag-jocelyn-noveck","tag-julie-kavner","tag-media","tag-movies","tag-rebecca-hall","tag-scandals","tag-woody-harrelson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342026","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=342026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}