Ella McCay

I remember seeing the trailers for this film and I felt truly intrigued as it looked decent. But this movie is just straight up bad unfortunately I just couldn't find this movie anything else other than boring to be put it nicely. I appreciate a film for wanting to take a swing at something new and James L Brooks has made some absolutely great films and I appreciate his creative risk here but this movie just doesn't work at all. The story here is really convoluted and confusing to put it nicely and there's so many different plots that we just fly through without spending time or even expanding on them just to make this run time even longer than what it should've been. This movie feels like it takes absolutely forever to get somewhere and the film truly doesn't do a whole lot with its story and plots. The writing is also pretty bad and it's laughable at how dumb the characters are in this film especially our lead Ella McCay and it feels like the movie is intentionally making her really dumb and stupid for no reason. This movie just doesn't really have a whole lot going on for it and none of the performances really stood out at all to me and with such a stacked cast it's disappointing to say that I felt like nobody knew what they were doing with the characters they had in this film. The movie also attempts to make lots of comedic jokes which don't land for the majority of the film and end up leaving the audience in just cringe in a sense and there's some jokes which do land but it's very rare for this film. I also didn't even realize Hans Zimmer did the score for this film and that is blowing my mind because I felt like there's barley any music used in this film and when it was used it's solid but I just didn't expect it to be from Hans Zimmer. The cinematography is also decent and there's some decent shots throughout the movie but there's just not a whole lot going here overall and I personally would recommend to skip this movie.

They say, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

I'll say this. The acting is good (that's the five stars). Ella Mackey (I'm sure the name is just a coincidence) is very likeable as the politically inept lieutenant governor thrust into the governor's seat, just likeable enough for the audience to feel for her (and this could have gone south really quick). You feel sorry for her because everyone seems to be gunning for her, except Julie Kavner (her secretary) who is nothing but helpful (the way Marge Simpson would be), Kumail Nanjianji as her sympathetic driver, and an excellent Jamie Lee Curtis as her loving aunt. The rest of the cast is passable and fit their roles just fine, including a wasted Woody Harrelson as Ella's philandering, narcissistic father.

That's about all I can say in keeping with my first statement. So I won't keep with it.

The movie is cute. It's (very) light entertainment, although there was plenty else playing the night I saw it that I would rather have spent my time on.

Otherwise it's kind of a mess. This could have passed as a Netflix or Hulu original, or even a Hallmark movie (where Ella ends up with the driver - that would have been fun as a romcom). But as a full $13/ticket movie, nope.

The plot is silly. The motivation for Ella's husbands actions make no sense (there are so many plot holes and unexplained events in other areas of the movie as well.) And then there's a side story of Ella's brother's failed romance that just doesn't fit other than to show the closeness of the siblings and the brother's social awkwardness as a counterpart to Ella's political ineptness.

There's a kind of an almost satisfying up yours moment towards the end and a happy ending of sorts.

All in all, everything about this is just sort of, kind of, almost, and not enough, and I think this one fails as a movie.

This movie is so.... odd. It has some really good small pieces, and to be honest, there's the makings of a great movie here somewhere. But unfortunately it just doesn't coalesce. It feels like there were either major rewrites, or something seriously went down in the editing room.

At the end of the day, its biggest issue is that there's simply too many side plots going on. We have: Ella's career (which incorporates a couple of plot lines), her marriage, her brother, her father, her bodyguard... the list goes on. The brother could have been cut entirely (which is funny, given that what I think is the movie's best scene is with the brother), and the father plot line didn't add much either.

I think if the movie had cut a lot of the family side plots, refocused the movie to be about Ella wanting to get stuff done as a politician but being unable to (which is in the movie, but gets lost among the numerous plot threads) in addition to focusing on her marriage and the scandal, it would have been a far better movie.

It's not completely without merit, I think anyone giving it a 1 is exaggerating. As mentioned at the beginning, there's some really great individual scenes sprinkled in the movie. But overall it has very very deep flaws that really drag it down.

Bright spot Albert Brooks, otherwise I disliked this and the rest of the cast as much as one possibly could in the short time I spent with it. It's like everyone here owed someone money or their soul. Saw this because Brooks. Both James L. And Albert, left irritated and irrationally angry. I thought this fluff was supposed to make you feel good? Hard 3.5 for competency and Brooks. If you must... than you must wait for streaming and hopefully a truly free streamer. Like YouTube or Tubi.

A somewhat rear vision mirror look at mostly conservative smallish town US politics with rather caricaturish goodies and baddies and not enough blur between the two to be convincing. Visually appealing, good pace that didn't outlast its welcome despite cliched themes and a reasonably clean if not totally believable wrap up. Jamie Lee Curtis made the most of limited opportunities and Emma Mackey ranged from fair to pretty good in some scenes. I can think of far worse ways to spend two hours.