If you know the work of James L. Brooks, you know this is a man who can write women, usually independent women who somehow have to survive the men in their lives in one way or another.
It all goes back to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which Brooks co-created with Allan Burns and focused on one of the first career women in television, with Mary Richards struggling in her professional life in that Minneapolis newsroom and her ever-challenging personal life as a good person who just “might make it after all.”
I thought of her while watching the latest Brooks comedy Ella McCay. But I also thought of his movies: the Oscar-winning Terms of Endearment, with that larger-than-life Aurora Greenway played to the hilt by Shirley MacLaine in conflict with her daughter, played by Debra Winger; Holly Hunter as the ever-idealistic journalist up against a male establishment in Broadcast News; and Helen Hunt, who had to deal with the unpredictable Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets. They both won lead Oscars for that movie, as did MacLaine under Brooks’ direction after a long career before it, and both Winger and Hunter were nominated for their roles. Mary Tyler Moore won a boatload of Emmys as Mary Richards.
There can be no doubt that Brooks has the magic touch when it comes to creating richly interesting and conflicted women, and he has done it again — maybe not quite in the same league with those aforementioned classics but a valiant return to character-driven comedy with Ella McCay, his first as a director in 15 years. It stars French-British actress Emma Mackey (Sex Education), and with her I get the feeling you are seeing a star being born in this smart, funny and surprisingly timely film set in the world of American politics and centered on an idealistic, issue-driven woman who not only has to survive the cutthroat world of politics but also the men closest to her: her father, younger brother, husband and boss/mentor. At times it is quite traumatic for poor Ella, but as Lou Grant once said of Mary Richards, she’s got spunk. Maybe too much of it for her own good, sometimes.
Through flashbacks we get the origin story of Ella (played from ages 16-34 by Mackey), who first experienced trauma via her own parents’ relationship. Her father (Woody Harrelson) isn’t a bad guy, just deeply flawed and cheating on her mother (Rebecca Hall), who somehow forgives him. With younger brother Casey in tow, she moves to L.A., leaving 17-year-old Ella behind to live with kind, wise and take-no-prisoners straight talker Aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), who is fiercely protective of Ella. It is in this period that Ella meets Ryan Newell (Jack Lowden), who seems too good to be true and a perfect boyfriend who could see she was heading places.
That she does, first working as chief of staff to the Mayor and then as Governor Bill’s (Albert Brooks) super-smart lieutenant governor. This is where we pick up the bulk of the story Brooks has concocted taking place in 2008 (a gentler time, we are assured, when we didn’t hate one another as much as we do now) in an unnamed state (but shot in Rhode Island). Ella is now married to Ryan but super busy as really the brains behind all the popular policy decisions of her mentor, Governor Bill, who has decided to take a cabinet position in the new administration, meaning Ella moves into the governor’s chair. She has all the support of Bill, even if he knows her idealism will not suit the realities of the job, or so she’s warned. Unfortunately, as all this is happening her ne’er-do-well dad, whom she hasn’t seen in 13 years, suddenly shows up with marching orders from his new romantic crush to make good with his grown children before she will take him seriously. Not an easy task.
On top of all this, she has a broken-hearted brother to deal with, Casey (Spike Fearn), who basically hasn’t left his apartment for a year after the breakup with his true love, Susan (Ayo Edebiri). And this isn’t really the time for hubby Ryan to get ambitious, but with his own need for attention and success, he does in all the wrong ways, becoming a bit of an *sshole — a guy we love to hate and no longer the perfect person of their youth. With all this happening, a scandal breaks, and Ella is in the middle of a true personal and professional crisis threatening to bring her down at the worst possible time.
Brooks juggles tone here between the spirit of screwball comedy inspired by films of the 1940s and ’50s mixed with strong character development and more serious undertones. What he has is essentially a textbook kind of female lead who is challenged by the men in her life, in this case an errant father, needy brother, duplicitous husband and a good man in Governor Bill, who in the end is really only supporting advancing her as a means to his own political ladder climb. No wonder she seems so disheveled.
Fortunately she still has faithful Aunt Helen, played in sincere and scene-stealing fashion by the always-welcome Curtis. Thank God for Helen. Without her anchoring, this whole soufflé would fall. Our other anchor is Julie Kavner as Ella’s assistant, Estelle, and the narrator of the story (eerily sounding a lot like Marge Simpson because, well, Kavner has voiced Marge in Brooks’ series The Simpsons since its inception so many years ago).
The other scene stealer is Brooks, who hits just the right notes as the more practical, retail-politics-loving governor who wants Ella to succeed but in far more realistic ways than she can deal with. Both Brooks and Curtis are movie treasures who raise the stakes here. Two British actors go very authentically American to respectively play husband and brother. Lowden (Slow Horses) has to somehow not make us feel he is so repulsively unfeeling toward his wife’s career that we can believe she would be with him in the first place. The flashbacks of the beginnings of this relationship help, but Brooks might have softened the edges later on as Ryan seems a bit overcooked, his transition to complete jerk a bit too jarring. The other Brit, Fearn, is a real find as the lovelorn but tech-savvy brother with real personal needs.
And then there is Harrelson, who perfectly, and even affably, plays a sometimes-despicable dad with dapper charm and at least makes us understand this is a guy who simply can’t change his nefarious ways. Hall and Edebiri do what they can in underwritten roles that don’t get the weight of the rest of the cast. Shout-out, though, to Kumail Nanjiani as the ever-faithful driver for Ella, Trooper Nash, the one man in Ella’s life who is true blue and watching out for her. Much of the role sees the character observing the ever-crumbling situation around her, but this is a guy who can be counted on unlike any other man currently in Ella McCay’s life, it seems.
Hopefully audiences will find this film, the kind of nice, unassuming, old-style comedy studios loved to turn out but have now turned off. Disney is releasing the 20th Century production two weeks before Christmas, when the target female audience traditionally is otherwise engaged in holiday activities. Ideally it can hang in there long enough for word of mouth to bring them into theaters. It is worth the visit, as always with anything James L. Brooks does.
He also produces along with Richard Sakai, Julie Ansell and Jennifer Brooks.
Title: Ella McCay
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios
Release date: December 12, 2025
Director-screenwriter: James L. Brooks
Cast: Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Lowden, Kumail Nanjiani, Ayo Edebiri, Spike Fearn, Julie Kavner, Rebecca Hall, Becky Ann Baker, Joey Brooks, Albert Brooks, Woody Harrelson
Rating: PG-13
Running time: 1 hr 55 mins
