Director: James L. Brooks
Cast: Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Lowden, Kumail Nanjiani, Ayo Debiri, Julie Kavner, Spike Fearn, Albert Brooks, Woody Harrelson
Screenplay: James L. Brooks
115 mins. Rated PG-13 for strong language, some sexual material and drug content.

Without a doubt, even in a film as disjointed, baffling, and frustrating as Ella McCay, Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All at Once) is incredible and we don’t deserve her.

Ella McCay (Emma Mackey, Barbie) is one of the youngest lieutenant governors in the nation, and over the next three days, she’s going to encounter a firestorm of personal and political hurdles that will change her irrevocably. There’s a reporter with some dirt on accidental misconduct that Ella unknowingly took part in. Her father is in town again, after not seeing him for over a decade following numerous affairs that destroyed her family. Her brother, a recluse, is not answering her calls anymore. Finally, she’s preparing for a new governmental opportunity that’s been placed before her. How can Ella juggle these many issues while maintaining her public image and personal self-worth?

While I always temper my expectations for each film I see, I can’t deny I was quite excited for Ella McCay. I liked the classical look of the film, I adore Emma Mackey’s work in Sex Education and Death on the Nile, and it has a terrific cast, but almost as quickly as the film started, I became flabbergasted at the confusing tone and the disconnect between the performers and the writing. It’s a bad screenplay, there’s no getting around it. This screenplay, in addition to the direction by James L. Brooks (As Good as It Gets), can’t seem to decide if individual scenes are supposed to be funny or dramatic, and the movie dances from a scene leaning but never committing to one tone and the next scene never committing to the other side.

This was a movie written and directed without a clear understanding of the passage of time in the world of filmmaking. It feels like Brooks understands his older characters because the veteran cast, most notably Curtis as Ella’s aunt Helen, Albert Brooks (Taxi Driver) as the governor, and Woody Harrelson (The Hunger Games) as Ella’s father Eddie. They’re able to connect with the writing, but the younger characters are written very clunky, and none of the very capable performers are able to fit the roles as written, and that is so disappointing considering how great Mackey is in so many other works. The writing for Ella is simply not up to her level, and she can’t save the bad screenplay.

I genuinely think that most of the subplots in Ella McCay can work, but this whole relationship between her and husband Ryan (Jack Lowden, Dunkirk) is baffling and confusing in how its presented, and the plotline involving Ella’s brother Casey (Spike Fearn, The Batman) attempting to reignite a relationship with an ex is absolutely awful, and I’m not sure what’s the point of it being in the movie.

It pains to me to say it, but Ella McCay will go down as one of the most disappointing films of the year. With the pedigree involved and the likable lead, this one befuddled me on almost every level, and I was in its corner, rooting for it leading to its release, but all of its problems are linked to a bad screenplay and some truly strange choices in direction. I’m hoping Emma Mackey is given a better film in the near future to lead as I think she’s delightful, but this one just wasn’t it. Beyond some great supporting work from the veteran cast uplifting its trappings, I can’t see much good in Ella McCay.

2/5
-Kyle A. Goethe