Ella McCay

Looking at the cast, I went in with modest optimism...maybe a solid 6 out of 10. I expected a sweet, easy holiday rom-com that required little more than popcorn and suspension of disbelief. Instead, what I got was an awkward, tonally confused mess that mistook cringe for charm and randomness for humor. The pacing dragged, the emotional beats never landed, and by the end it felt like a complete waste of 90 minutes of my life. At least the popcorn was good.

Ella McCay boasts a great cast, but unfortunately they are cobbled together with a muddled script and directionless story to create a rather lacklustre movie.

Tonally, the film is a mess. Is it a comedy? A drama? A satire? Who knows. Certainly not the cast or crew, as it was just all over the place in this respect. The performances didn't make any sense in the context of the story, almost feeling like caricatures of what they were trying to do.

In terms of the story and script, I really don't know what point it was trying to make. It circled around a few points and made them very poorly, but there were just too many story threads to give anything much focus. Characters and plot threads came and went in the blink of an eye, and there was no unifying theme or plot line or direction to it all.

It was also highly frustrating that practically every character in this film was highly annoying. I just simply did not care about any of them and struggled to get invested in any way to them.

I just really don't know what they were thinking with this film. A bizarre mess.

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.

This film is all over the place... there isn't a coherent storyline that sticks. The jokes do not land either, was not funny in any way AT ALL. I was looking forward to this as the amazing Jamie Lee Curtis is in it as is another of my favourites Woody Harrelson. I think the actors struggle to make this plot (or lack of) work but as much as they try it just doesn't work. It is definitely not recommended. I don't score 4/10 often but this deserves the score I'm sorry to say. Have a great day.

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.