One would think that after a 15-year-long absence from the silver screen, the return of director James L. Brooks would be met with more fanfare than a small release being dumped the weekend before the holidays are in full swing. There are, of course, various reasons for this, but it speaks most to how a movie like Ella McCay just isn’t made nearly as often within the modern film landscape. Brooks is attempting to bring back the laid-back charm of classic comedies from the late 90s, in a similar vein to his own work, like As Good as it Gets or even a rom-com like Broadcast News. It’s definitely a valiant effort that we need more of in today’s films, so it’s a shame that Ella McCay falls completely flat on almost every front.
It’s almost admirable to see just how hard the film is trying to grasp onto any charm it can get a hold of within such airless humor, but the more even the simplest of allures are stretched out, the more grating the film becomes. From its overly convoluted story threads to character arcs that are ill-defined, it leads one to wonder if Ella McCay was ever a fully formed idea to begin with. Brooks’ baffling screenplay would be more forgivable if the film were even the slightest bit funnier, but nine times out of ten, the jokes are just as incomplete as the story surrounding them.
Ella McCay takes place during 2008, a time when U.S. financials were in the toilet during the last recession. Ella McCay (Emma Mackey) is serving as her state’s lieutenant governor and is looking forward to a huge moment in her career to take the job of the current governor, Bill (Albert Brooks), thanks to his not getting accepted to a higher administration. Things seem like a dream come true for Ella, but if anything can get in her way, it’s the constant chaos of everything in her life on top of her new job.
While trying to create laws that are for the betterment of her state, Ella deals with daily squabbles and turmoil. From Ella’s relationship with her selfishly motivated husband (Jack Lowden), her brother Casey’s romantic drama (Spike Fearn), and the constant pleas from her absent father, Eddie (Woody Harrelson), for his despicable acts that traumatized her at a young age, Ella’s current life couldn’t be more stressful. With a potential previous scandal also brewing behind the scenes, Ella finds most, if any, comfort through her aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) as she tries day by day to juggle the struggles of her life.
If there’s at least one thing that can be appreciated about Ella McCay, it’s that it is unabashedly sincere in its presentation and theming. The warm colors of the film give it a cutesy coziness in its earliest scenes that make it seem like the film will work better than it actually does. The film is also saved from even worse conundrums thanks to the ever-delightful Emma Mackey as the lead here. She isn’t always able to save some overdrawn gags or bizarre handlings of flashbacks and cheesy dialogue, but if there’s any takeaway to be had from the film, it’s that she remains the absolute heart of this story.
Unfortunately, Ella McCay doesn’t have much else going for it on the whole, as the film’s messiness makes it difficult to be endured by any of its ideas. There are just way too many overlapping plotlines happening within an already unfocused overall narrative here, and by the time the film reaches its conclusion, absolutely none of the hope and whimsy it wants to convey translates because nothing about the film’s intersections of comedy or drama is satisfying at all.
It’s virtually like James L. Brooks had a few plans for a movie he wanted to write, lost interest in it about a third of the way through, and still decided to make the film anyway. Everything here is laughably incoherent. This is especially insane when drawn out and unfunny bits like Casey’s relationship with his girlfriend, Susan (Ayo Edebiri), could easily be removed to let moments of drama in Ella’s family and government life breathe more.
For every cute moment of chemistry between Mackey and Curtis, there’s an equally insane moment of dialogue that follows it up. Any fun to be had in any of these performances is lost in how unbelievable most of the film’s dialogue is, even whilst in a setting of the past; every scene, whether comedy or drama-focused, is indeterminable. Even other aspects of the film, like its editing and ADR, are so haphazardly stitched together that it’s like everyone was on autopilot while making this thing.
Despite its well-meaning manner and occasional cuteness, Ella McCay is a bewildering misfire from James L. Brooks, with incoherent pieces of dialogue and a screenplay that is stitched together by a single thread. With constant misses in the film’s attempts at comedy and performances that are as absent as the film itself, Ella McCay, at the very least, sticks out as one of the more baffling films you’ll watch unfold this year.
Ella McCay will debut in theaters on December 12, 2025, courtesy of 20th Century Studios.
With constant misses in the film’s attempts at comedy and performances that are as absent as the film itself, Ella McCay, at the very least, sticks out as one of the more baffling films you’ll watch unfold this year.
Lover of film writing about film. Member of the Dallas Fort-Worth Critics Association. The more time passes, the more the medium of movies has become deeply intertwined with who I am.
