Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new movie review! For this one, I will be looking at one of the more high profile disappointments in recent memory that has been unexpectedly been the subject of various memes. Ella McCay is the latest directorial outing for James L. Brooks, who many may know as one of the co creators of The Simpsons, as well as the man who has helmed movies like Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, and As Good As It Gets among others. I myself have only seen the latter film, but I absolutely love it and am also a massive fan of his work on the earlier Simpsons seasons. He is someone who hasn’t had a movie in a while with his last two movies, Spanglish and How Do You Know, being high profile disappointments and so Disney and 20th Century green lighting this project for him was surprising… though not that much when you realize that they would need to consult him about working on another Simpsons movie. So in exchange for that, he gets to make this movie and I was honestly interested in it as I like the talent involved and enjoy small scale character studies like this. Was Brooks able to provide a return to form? Let’s jump right in and see whether this is worth having a challenge named after it!
Taking place in 2008, this story follows a young woman named… well Ella McCay, the lieutenant governor of her state that finds out that Governor Bill Moore is moving up to a cabinet position. She is now set to take over his position, becoming the Governor of the state she was born and raised in. While idealistic and full of ambition, she also find herself under an immense amount of pressure to be a worthy successor. Not only that but she is also surrounded by personal drama surrounding various beings in her life such as her controlling husband, deadbeat father, and aimless brother among other things as she tries to deal with it all while doing the best she can.
When it comes to Brooks’s work, he seems to have a knack for tackling people living their lives and all of the complications that arise in a way that manages to feel geunine and entertaining, where even though things are exaggerated, the drama and characters feel real in a way. Which makes me sad to say that Ella McCay does not come close to resonating in that way. This is such an odd movie in many ways. For one, it feels like Brooks is trying to mine some genuine drama and emotion from the story, but it leans so far into this over the top way of presenting the characters and their issues, that it is hard to take anything too seriously and it just comes at odds with what he is trying to do. I certainly admire what he is going for as the movie is at its best when exploring the role of a governor and the complications of trying to do what is best for one’s state, while also dealing with the stress of other aspects of life just colliding with it. There’s even some interesting conversations in the dilemma of Ella being honest about what one is fighting for even it is to the annoyance of those around here or trying to please the crowds so to look good in front of the people, and given her standing as a woman governor, the scrutiny and pressure is unfairly much higher.
When the movie focuses on this stuff, it can be quite thoughtful… problem is it feels like the governor stuff takes a back seat to the other facets of the story that aren’t very compelling. It feels like there is too much going on with all of these different plot lines not feeling very fulfilling as far as development goes and thanks to the way Brooks tells this story, the drama just doesn’t register that much beyond a handful of nice conversations. Now, that doesn’t mean the movie doesn’t have its moments. While there is plenty of comedy that did nothing for me, there are some bits and gags that did get a decent laugh out of me and feel like Brooks in his element as far as writing humor goes, with a scenes involving a note being passed around during a speech being a particular amusing moment. That and the movie has its heart in the right place as it wants to showcase the world through a more optimistic, if very unrealistic lens (I have hard time believing that everyone was getting along before the market crashing in 2008) and there are aspects of the ending I like that feel like a natural endpoint for this character given what she went through. I just wish the movie as whole came together better.
Due to the nature of the kinds of stories he tells, Brooks doesn’t really have much of a distinct style, which is not a bad thing at all as he tends to hone in on the writing and the characters to get things across. This is a competently made feature all things considered though can’t really say there’s much from a visual perspective that stands out here. We get some occasionally pretty scenery of… wherever this place is (its kind of funny how vague this film tries to be in this regard) as it has nice New Englandish feel to it, but on the whole Brooks avoids presenting this movie in any way that is particularly unique. Now some of the editing is effective when it comes to presenting certain jokes and there’s an attempt to really focus in on these characters with the way Brooks always centers the camera closely to them in the more intimate scenes, however this only does so much when the writing isn’t that up to par. If there’s one thing that elevates the film slightly though, it is Hans Zimmer’s (yes you heard me right) score which is quite lovely and does a nice job in capturing the small town vibe that Brooks is trying to present and it is refreshing seeing him put his talent into something more smaller in scale.
Another angle where this movie feels off is in quite a few of the performances, which is unfortunate given all of the talent involved here. To start on a good note, Emma Mackey does try her best to make Ella into a sympathetic protagonist and helps elevate the movie a bit. While, I was a bit unsure if I was going to like the direction she is given, as it can risk coming off as way too corny or potentially grating, but she is able to sell things quite well and seems to best present the wavelength that Brooks is on more than most of her co stars. She presents Ella’s determination and fire with much passion, which does make it all the more frustrating when things don’t end up going the way she envisioned. She is able to successfully convey the stress this character is feeling in her current situation and show off her vulnerable state to show that that there is more to her than just her tough, no nonsense exterior. She also is able to sell some of the more over the top moments pretty well, in a way that feels a bit more genuine than what some of the other actors do. I just wish the conflicts we see Ella go through were better developed cause if so, this could’ve been a strong character study.
Less convincing in their roles are some very talented individuals who aren’t done much service with the script nor the direction they’re given. I love Jamie Lee Curtis as much as the next film fan and she can do over the top really well, but here her work comes off as too cartoonish and forced as Ella’s aunt, Helen, to the point where it’s hard to take her scenes seriously, even when I know Brooks intended it to be that way. I also, with some okay quiet scenes here and there, just kind of found her to be kind of exhausting here which is a shame as Brooks is clearly trying to present her as a kind and crucial parental figure in Ella’s life. Woody Harrelson also suffers from this same problem as Ella’s father Eddie, though I can slightly understand the way he is portrayed as a pathetic father figure whose attempts to reconcile with his daughter feel insincere at best. I admire the messaging going on here with regards to sometimes forgiveness being too tall of an order for certain people, but this plotline felt greatly underserved as I almost forgot about it until it popped up every now and then. The worst offender though is Jack Lowden as Ella’s husband, Ryan, who is so uncharismatic and comes off like a Saturday morning cartoon villain that I had a hard time seeing why Ella became so enamored with this guy, which is a big problem considering she has a whole crisis of deciding if she should stay with this guy or not. And then there’s Spike Fearn as Ella’s younger brother who is going for an awkward personality, but even with that I didn’t really like his performance and his storyline about getting with this girl played by Ayo Edebri (in a thankless role) was so useless to the overall story that it could’ve been cut out completely. Instead we just get some long scenes of him rambling that just had me checked out.
Not everyone struggles with what they’re given here though. Kumail Nanjiani actually manages to get a couple of nice scenes with Mackey as Ella’s driver, State Trooper Nash, and has some solid line deliveries and facial expressions that serve as some of the more successful attempts at humor. Rebecca Hall also is one of the few to take things seriously in her brief role as Ella’s mother, Claire, actually managing to make some of the emotion involved with her character land. The two stand outs for me, supporting wise are two Brooks veterans in the form of Julie Kavner (yes, Marge Simpson herself) as Ella’s secretary, Estelle and Albert Brooks (no relation to the director) as Governor Moore. Kavner seems to be having the most fun as a reliable, yet stubborn secretary who is also very kind hearted and she is able get all those sides of the character across perfectly. Meanwhile, Brooks slides into his role the most comfortably out of everyone in the entire cast, displaying a fun dead pan wit that contrasts well with Ella’s more out going personality and he just manages to get how to play his role in a way others in the cast don’t really succeed at. Him and Mackey have a good rapport and I found their conversations to be very well written with the Brooks able to play the difficult role of the mentor type figure who has a lot of concerns about Ella, but is only trying to be realistic and frank with her in order to help her make the right decisions. He also is responsible for some of the funniest lines and bits in the film.
Overall, while not a total disaster, I found myself very disappointed with Ella McCay. It has some interesting ideas on its mind, there are individual character scenes I quite enjoyed, I appreciate some of the optimism, its competently made, and there are some solid performances to be found. However, it ends up an unfortunate misfire thanks to various underdeveloped plot threads and ideas, a mixed bag of a script, and some performances that just didn’t do anything for me. It really is a shame as Brooks is a very talented filmmaker/writer, but between this and his last couple of critical misfires it seems like he hasn’t been doing as well as one would like in regards to making stuff that lives up to what put him on the map. I honestly can’t really recommend this as an old fashioned character dramedy as I feel like there are much better ones out there for those looking for such an offering. With how lambasted this film has become and how disastrous its box office is, I was hoping to be in the minority on this one, but sadly I can’t help but see where everyone is coming from. Oh well, hopefully we get a good Simpsons Movie out of this existing… emphasis on hopefully.
Rating: C
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