Ella McCay Review
Director James L. Brooks returns to the big screen with a bland, saccharine dramedy.
Emma Mackey as Ella McCay in Ella McCay. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios
Ella McCay is a new dramedy from writer-director James L. Brooks, director of Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, and As Good As It Gets, and his first film in 15 years. This film about family, responsibility, and doing the right thing is a dated bit of fluff that doesn’t compare to the filmmaker’s best work.
The film follows titular Ella McCay (Emma Mackey), an idealistic young woman who suddenly becomes governor of her state when her boss and mentor, the previous governor, gets sworn in as a presidential Cabinet member. Meanwhile, she wrestles with her family: her womanizing father (Woody Harrelson), who suddenly wants to make amends, and her agoraphobic brother (Spike Fearn), who is wrestling with a personal crisis. To make things worse, her jealous husband (Jack Lowden) threatens to cause things to spin out of control.
Emma Mackey as Ella McCay in Ella McCay. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios
This is a bland film. There are plot elements that could have come together into something better, but they’re wasted in this mediocre, feel-good movie. Based on my synopsis, I can imagine this as a compelling dramatic miniseries. The hopefulness of the material’s lighthearted execution here just feels saccharine.
The film is also tone-deaf to the current political moment; it feels like a fantasy. It’s out of touch with its oversimplified depiction of governance and relative political decency in a moment of weakness. Brooks doesn’t even have the courage here to name the state where the story takes place. If the movie was good enough, I could have forgiven this aspect, but it’s not.
Emma Mackey as Ella McCay in Ella McCay. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios
The performances are underwhelming, to say the least, but the actors didn’t have much to work with in the script. The stacked supporting cast is simply wasted. Actors that I usually love watching—Jamie Lee Curtis, Woody Harrelson, Ayo Edebiri, Rebecca Hall, Kumail Nanjiani—have little to do and deliver performances that are far below the quality of their usual output. The characters they play are broad caricatures that do little to sell the film’s emotional stakes.
I was hopeful going into Ella McCay, having seen none of the marketing material and only knowing the film was the return of James L. Brooks to the big screen. If you want to see his best work, avoid this and watch his movies from the 1980s and 1990s. Even today, those films don’t feel as dated as this one.
Ella McCay opens in theaters on December 12, 2025.
