Photos courtesy of 20th Century Studios
ELLA MCCAY— 2 STARS
On the surface, Ella McCay presents a title character in a politically-flavored comedy that is—at least for one side of the American political aisle—very easy and inspiring to root for. Played by the fast-emerging French-British actress Emma Mackey of Emma and Death on the Nile, she’s the fiercely progressive woman who has ascended to the position of Lieutenant Governor of her unnamed home state. Her goals put the word “idealistic” to shame. Over the course of the film, the narrative pace grants Mackey several monologues to promote her character’s standout agenda, gleaming through the uptight and upright persona.
If you listen, the tenets being touted are wonderful, and these moments are stellar to witness from the character and the actress in Ella McCay, until you see how they are received by everyone else sharing the scenes. Her efforts to pour her heart out are met, at first, by the proverbial deaf ears. The first instance of this comes from her superior, Governor Bill Moore, played by the incomparable Albert Brooks, where he stops listening and waits for his turn to volley reductive indifference back as only he can. We detect quickly; it’s not the first time he’s done this in a workplace conversation with his running mate.
Not long after that, Ella is confronting her closeted incel brother, Casey (Spike Fearn of Alien: Romulus). The longer she presents her sisterly wishes for him, the more he breaks eye contact and continues his sports gambling keystrokes at his multi-monitor computer station. Does the sharply focused Ella McCay, shown as a career politician and keen listener, notice or stop when her own brother is disengaged and try another course of communication?
Nope. The script has her yammering on… and on…
LESSON #1: THE DISMAY OF EXHAUSTED DISINTEREST— At this point in Ella McCay, the result of these monologues has become exhausted disinterest. Now, if that combination of disrespectful body language and completely detached attention were used to label the antagonists and opponents of the film slated for correction and comeuppance, that would be ideal. If this trend of exhausted interest stopped right here to downgrade the put-downs of a boss or the irresponsibility of a ne’er-do-well sibling, Ella McCay would have plenty to work with. Unfortunately, the problem is that this result only gets wider and worse the more Ella McCay tries to champion Ella McCay.
When Ella finally gets to take the oath for the top office after Bill resigns to accept a Cabinet position in Washington, her acceptance speech turns into another laborious stump moment. The gathered crowd reacts with slight cheers from the woman and groans from the men, including Bill and all of his decorum-ignoring impatience and backseat driving. By the time Ella McCay holds her first closed-door full staff meeting, the film cuts to her speechifying in front of a long conference table hours later, where EVERY person—near or far—is slumped in their chair asleep, including one with a foot-long stalagtite of drool dangling from their agape mouth.
Once again, does Ella McCay read the room and stop in order to have her words and the ideas she so carefully organized and passionately holds dear be absorbed and comprehended professionally and properly? Nope. The script has her in fixed espousement mode.
She keeps yammering on… and on…
In the initial steps of character establishment, Ella McCay grants these detailed community initiatives to Ella to look like the sterling principles of a legitimate do-gooder and upstanding social justice warrior. Her honesty and purity are presented to be greater than everyone else’s, where no one can hold a candle to her fervent dedication. This is especially strengthened after the film goes to great lengths during flashbacks in the first act, showing a tumultuous family history spiralling from a painful divorce triggered by her father’s (Woody Harrelson) infidelity and custody granted to her aunt (Academy Award winner Jamie Lee Curtis) after the unfortunate passing of her mother (Rebecca Hall, who has no business being reduced to a “movie mom” role at the age 43) when Ella was a teenager.
And what does James L. Brooks, the famed writer/director and three-time Oscar winner of Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, and As Good As It Gets, do with those good graces? Dilute the very intelligence of the character to possess little to no wherewithal and continuously pile on the exhausted disinterest from Lesson #1 through everyone else. By orchestrating this massively dismissive environment to the heroine four different times in Ella McCay, the momentum does not support the underdog anymore, no matter how much the hard-nosed Simpsons veteran Julie Kavner, playing Ella’s secretary Estelle and the film’s fourth wall-breaking narrator, adds her own cinematic chutzpah.
Rather than build around a good core, Brooks overpacks and oversells this movie to be “three days that would change everything.” A returning estranged father, a public sex scandal, and more slippery slope curveballs and B-character arcs (played by actors like Kumail Nanjiani who seem happy just to say they were in a James L. Brooks movie once) are thrown against the table read wall instead of the editing bay to see what sticks and what will constantly get in the way of Emma Mackey properly owning Ella McCay. Toss in a spotlight-jealous trophy husband from Slow Horses star Jack Lowden and, time and again, all we see is three more days where the smartest person in the room is made to look like a blathering mess.
LESSON #2: DO BETTER BY THE CHARACTER YOU NEED THE AUDIENCE TO ROOT FOR— While purposely framed in the vein of humor, none of this treatment in Ella McCay is doing the main character—or Emma Mackey, whom many are likely seeing in a leading role for the first time—any favors. The extremes between comedy and trauma are woeful and disorienting, even when the over-qualified legend Hans Zimmer tries to give the pendulum a fanciful score. The more she’s tuned out or weighted down by nutty anxiety, the more we, the audience, are squelched from hearing and being inspired by the full gusto potential of Ella and having Mackey’s brand of dither win us over in Diane Keaton fashion. It’s colossally disappointing Ella McCay did not do better by the character the audience needed to root for.
LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#1359)
