Ella McCay – Film Review
by Brian Merriman

Written and Directed by James L Brooks
Starring: Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Lowden, Woody Harrelson, Rebecca Hall, Kumail Nanjiani, Spike Fearn,,Ayo Edebiri, Albert Brooks and Julie Kavner.
Produced by James L. Brooks, Richard Sakai, Julie Ansell and Jennifer Brooks
Cinematography by Robert Elswitt
Music by Hans Zimmer
Production Company Gracie Films

Duration 115 minutes

85-year-old James L Brooks, legendary writer and director, offers us Ella McCay as his latest central character, from a vast repertoire that brought us from groundbreaking 70’s TV series The Mary Tyler Moore Show, to the eternal, The Simpsons, while winning three Oscars and a truckload of Emmys and accolades along the way.

Ella McCay is definitely more Tyler Moore in its style, relying on dysfunction for humour and situating an engaging Emma Mackey as a capable, slightly neurotic 34-year-old, in the seat of a State’s political power. Lieutenant Governors are just ‘a heartbeat away’ from the Governorship. The door to the Governor’s Mansion swings open for our deeply committed policy guru, determined to improve the well-being of her electors. She is without the deal-making skills of her mentor, outgoing Governor Bill Moore, a smooth Albert Brooks, in a lovely study of a successful politician with no troubling convictions.

Ella has come from a dysfunctional family. Rebecca Hall’s mom is everything you would expect from the hapless partner of a philanderer husband, a sleazy Woody Harrelson as Dad, Eddie. Younger brother and intellectually eccentric Casey, an impressively layered performance from Spike Fearn, is shielded by older sister, Ella, from family scandal. They are all held together by a powerful Aunt Helen, Jamie Lee Curtis, who is in her energetic element.

Ella first escapes marital mayhem and is married to her first sweetheart, Ryan, a likeable Jack Lowden. They seem to have sustained a great marriage until Ryan’s ambition very suddenly rears its uglier head when Ella is promoted. There isn’t really a backstory to justify this volte face, but it happens.

Ella is blessed, not only with Helen’s forthright support but with two well-crafted supporting staffers, Kumail Nanjiani as her Trooper minder and a glorious performance from the voice of Marge Simpson, Julie Kavner, now seen on screen as Estelle, her loyal secretary and the film’s narrator. The voice is unmistakable and the character hugely similar to Tyler Moore’s Rhoda’s mother, Ida Morgenstern, played on TV by Nancy Walker.

Many won’t remember the iconic Tyler Moore show. Ella McCay is an entertaining story that has a lot of charm. Ella seems to spend more time in her early days in office concentrating on her own family challenges than on the affairs of the State. Lacking the ruthlessness for office, she is much more a philanthropist than a politician, which creates the space for catastrophe and resolution.

The Mary Tyler Moore show charmed a generation of sitcom viewers. This movie has the same appeal and indeed, feel to it. Ella McCay will have a life beyond this contemporary release and will get to our smaller screens repeatedly in the future. It’s humour, and there are some good one-liners; is light, and its observation of idealised political intrigue is gentle. It feels a little nostalgic as Brooks dips into an assured repertoire, rather than continuing to create a contemporary, strong, female central character. With such a strong cast and a Marge Simpsonesque voice and presence, there is not a lot to dislike.