Ella McCay

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.

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.

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.