At this level, most individuals affiliate legendary author/director James L. Brooks with the eternal animated collection The Simpsons, the place his identify seems on the finish of the opening credit. One must plumb the depths of Prime Video to delight in his earlier success as co-creator of the traditional sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Present and Taxi. Throughout his ascendant years, Brooks showcased his true artistic sensibilities when he started directing movies, beginning with 1983’s Phrases of Endearment, for which he received three Oscars, together with Finest Director. Given such an auspicious begin, it’s shocking to study that he’s solely directed six movies within the ensuing 40 years, the excessive being Broadcast Information and the low, not less than till Ella McCay, being 2010’s How Do You Know.
All of Brooks’s movies are mild on their toes, sharply written, character-first comedies that don’t shrink back from addressing tough matters, and he directs his actors to carry out in a approach that’s each broadly entertaining and emotionally particular. His true present is wrapping every movie in a brightly lit, accessible, upper-middle class bundle that in the end doesn’t ask a lot of its viewers but additionally would not disrespect their intelligence. Brooks’s fashion hasn’t modified a lot within the 15 years since How Do You Know, and it exhibits in Ella McCay, a withering letdown of a political fairy story that feels dated from its first body and disappointing till its ultimate body.
The terrific Emma Mackey has the nice and cozy smile, self-effacing streak and you-go-girl spunk of traditional Brooksian heroines like Mary Tyler Moore and Broadcast Information’s Holly Hunter. However even in a comedic context, she reads totally too younger to play a wonkish, overachieving Lieutenant Governor who ascends to the Governorship. She’s basically enjoying Governor Ally McBeal, which is smart contemplating that Brooks’s script feels prefer it’s been languishing behind a drawer for the reason that Clinton administration, when he directed his final nice movie, 1997’s As Good As It Will get.
Given his Oscar-larded pedigree, it’s no shock that Brooks assembles a top-notch supporting solid. Some, together with Jamie Lee Curtis and Woody Harrelson, give barely excitable performances that indulge Brooks’s rom-com instincts and are possibly pushing a little bit too arduous to ship for such a legendary determine. One who doesn’t is Brooks’s Broadcast Information co-star Albert Brooks, as welcome and dry as ever in a small function. He performs Governor Invoice, the beloved chief of an unnamed, however in all probability East Coast state (the movie was shot in Rhode Island). The amiable Invoice depends on Ella, his formidable younger coverage wonk, for the heavy agenda lifting, so when he pronounces he’s resigning for a cupboard put up, he names Ella as his alternative.
In Brooks’s earlier movies, even one as misguided because the musical/not a musical I’ll Do Something, there’s actual and recognizable human habits for us to latch onto. Ella McCay usually pitches its comedy a bit excessive, so there’s little for us to emotionally join with, particularly when Brooks piles on so many cumbersome and underdeveloped issues. Certainly, given all the wedding and household points that Ella juggles, it’s a miracle she spends any time governing or stumping for the charity selling wholesome enamel that Brooks awkwardly shoehorns into the story. Ella’s greatest drawback is her deadbeat father, Eddie (Harrelson), who’s attempting to drive himself again into her life after a 13-year absence. Steadfastly in opposition to this concept to an usually frantic diploma is Aunt Helen (Curtis), Ella’s protector and teller of uncomfortable truths. Helen can also be not a fan of Ella’s husband, Ryan (Jack Lowden), who has no political expertise aside from having fun with the perks of his spouse’s place. He’s such a ridiculous character in such an implausible marriage that at one level he threatens to divorce Ella until she makes him co-governor.
In aiming for a screwball comedy vibe, Brooks faucet dances his approach into one thing so contrived and discursive that nothing sticks, and a few story threads even really feel pointless. That’s actually the case with Ella’s agoraphobic brother, Casey (Spike Fearn), who’s been holed up in his house for a 12 months since breaking apart along with his girlfriend. It is a useless subplot presumably added as an excuse to rent Ayo Edebiri (The Bear) because the girlfriend and hip up the solid. Ella, a state governor who can blithely stroll round city with out being observed, pays Casey quite a few visits, together with one the place she ingests pot-infused soda and pot-laced cookies, resulting in one in every of cinema’s least freaky drug-induced freakouts.
Ella McCay unfolds in 2008, “a greater time after we all nonetheless preferred one another.” It is also a time that Brooks is presumably extra comfy writing about, since he can divorce his story from right this moment’s political controversies and the toxic ubiquity of social media. Plus, Brooks is 85 years outdated, so we won’t blame him for trying again. Nor can we be too stunned if the years have taken some velocity off his fastball. However Ella McCay performs like a replica of a James L. Brooks movie, proper all the way down to Hans Zimmer’s treacly rating and Julie Kavner’s pointless narration, which augurs hassle from the opening scene and suggests last-minute tinkering.
Within the years since Brooks’s final movie, comedy has develop into extra cringe, extra meta and extra experimental. Brooks’s fashion of filmmaking has by no means felt so out of vogue, and Ella McCay solely additional ushers it out the door.
Ella McCay, from twentieth Century Studios, opens in theaters December 12
- Launch Date
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December 12, 2025
- Director
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James L. Brooks
- Writers
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James L. Brooks
- Producers
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Julie Ansell, Richard Sakai
