Bill Clinton was elected governor at an impressively young 31. Sarah Huckabee Sanders achieved the same feat when she was 40. In “Ella McCay,” the title character ascends to her state’s highest seat at the tender age of 34. “Tender” is the operative word, as writer-director James L. Brooks is too charitable a storyteller to give Ella (Emma Mackey) fangs or the preternaturally thick skin anyone entering politics in the real world needs to survive in that sphere.
In what feels like a calculated stab at making a Frank Capra movie — more “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” than “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” in its bewildering disconnect from the real world — a precocious political upstart is distracted and ultimately dragged down by her dysfunctional family. Ella serves as lieutenant governor of an unnamed state, whose two most important policies are dissolving the phone bank (where politicians squander countless hours raising money, instead of listening to their constituents’ concerns) and implementing an asininely assonant dental plan she calls “Tooth Tutors” (designed to put proud smiles on everyone’s faces).
Brooks, bless his soul, really does believe that smiling makes the world a better place.
Over a career that spans landmark television series (like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Taxi” and “The Simpsons”), Oscar-winning movies (from “Terms of Endearment” to “As Good as It Gets”) and more than a few fiascos (like “I’ll Do Anything,” the musical rom-com notoriously stripped of its songs), the architect behind so many appealingly imperfect characters has demonstrated an earnest commitment to seeing the best in people. Not “the devil” of “Broadcast News” or Ella’s “douchey” dad and husband in this movie, but idealists, like “Jerry Maguire” (which he produced), who stay true to their hearts in a world determined to corrupt them.
Today, that world seems to be winning, which might explain why Brooks sets “Ella McCay” back in 2008 — “a better time” when “we still liked each other,” according to Julie Kavner’s croaky voiceover (the same actress who plays Marge Simpson in Brooks’ hit sitcom appears as Ella’s smitten assistant Estelle). “I’m nuts about her,” Estelle confesses at the outset, and she’s obviously not alone: Brooks writes beautifully flawed characters, but it doesn’t feel like a flaw for Ella to be a goody two shoes with impossibly high standards (and broken heels, per the movie poster).
As the less endearingly named Melvin Udall, Jack Nicholson once famously confessed, “You make me want to be a better man.” Here, a worse woman probably would have been more interesting/relatable than the girl-wonder Brooks gives us. Right up front, he flashes back to Ella in high school, when she comes home with an A+ paper, on which her teacher has written, “You can be a force for good” — and she clearly takes that to heart. Around that time, Ella’s optimism suffers a series of setbacks.
Her father Eddie (Woody Harrelson) is fired for sexual indiscretions at work, and her mom Claire (Rebecca Hall) dies heartbroken and humiliated — but not before entrusting Ella to her aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis, whose comic timing is ideally suited to this unfiltered guardian) for her senior year of high school. Later we learn that the ballast holding back her ascent to success is a doting classmate named Ryan (Jack Lowden), a “ticking timebomb” on her political career who rightly tells Helen, “I don’t think anyone is good enough for her.”
Watching a mid-tier James L. Brooks movie like this, in which every line of dialogue is polished within an inch of its life (i.e. to utter lifelessness, for better quotability), can feel like browsing through the greeting card section at your local drugstore. Brooks’ characters speak in hyper-articulate aphorisms — like the belief of Ella’s boss, ex-governor Bill Moore (Albert Brooks), that “to get anything done, you need dumb people to feel less dumb.” Some make you chuckle or sigh at their cleverness. Others evince groans. But none sound even remotely like human speech.
If everyone’s so nuts about Ella, then why do “people’s ears clog” anytime she starts to talk? Maybe it’s just Helen, Estelle and Ella’s dopey driver, Trooper Nash (Kumail Nanjiani), who share Brooks’ faith in her. At Ella’s inauguration as governor, she gives a long-winded speech about what she’ll do in office. As the crowd zones out, it’s doubtful Ella would win a proper election, and though Mackey (who once played Physicist Barbie opposite similar looking Margot Robbie) comes across as a flustered but otherwise capable adult woman. Ella McCay could be “Legally Blonde” overachiever Elle Woods’ brunette counterpart.
As Ella takes office, she must decide whether to cave to a reporter’s blackmail demands. Her father has resurfaced (after being gone mere minutes in screen time) in search of forgiveness. And she seems needlessly worried about her younger brother Casey (Spike Fearn), who makes $2 million a year glued to his computer. None of this seems particularly salient to Brooks’ main concern, of presenting Ella as a modern Mary Tyler Moore: a self-made success in a patriarchal system (and likely a role model for his female grandchildren).
Meanwhile, everything about “Ella McCay” feels outdated, from its take on politics — which, weirdly, goes against the Capra-esque notion that speaking one’s mind can change the world. Brooks’ best quality as a writer is the way he wears his heart on his sleeve, writing characters who do the same. But there’s a clunkiness here that suggests test screenings or studio notes cost the movie key exposition (establishing why Ryan’s a liability, for example, or explaining the cringey dynamic between Ella and her driver).
That’s odd when you consider the number of scenes “Ella McCay” would have better without — including the yikes profession-of-like between Casey and his ex Susan (Ayo Edebiri), which reveals the anxious young man doesn’t require a girlfriend so much as a nurse. One thing’s for certain: Brooks thinks they’re all cute as can be, which is evident in every faux-spontaneous smirk and squint and scream. When that latter tension-releasing moment finally arrives, more than a few viewers may feel tempted to join in.
