To paraphrase one of the Caped Crusader’s most articulate but menacing foes, “When is a movie not a movie?” The answer: “When it should be a TV series instead.” And that, unfortunately, is the inherent problem with this latest offering from legendary film and television writer-director-producer James L. Brooks. Set during the 2008 financial crisis, this comedy-drama tells the multifaceted story of its likable but beleaguered title character (Emma Mackey), an idealistic and enthusiastic lieutenant governor who champions causes aimed at helping everyday citizens, even if she’s somewhat long-winded and overbearing in expressing herself. But, when her boss, affable, plainspoken “Governor Bill” (Albert Brooks), is named to a Presidential Cabinet post, Ella is unexpectedly elevated into the state’s top executive post. However, she quickly finds herself dancing as fast as she can in handling both her political responsibilities and the challenges posed by her long-dysfunctional family members, pulling her in multiple directions at once. And that, sadly, is where the film gets itself into trouble by trying to incorporate too many story threads into one picture. Granted, each of the individual narrative elements is mostly solid but also mostly underdeveloped, simply because there are too many of them to adequately fit into the time constraints of a typical commercial production. For starters, there’s Ella’s stressful relationship with her estranged father, Eddie (Woody Harrelson), a serial philanderer who broke the heart of her lovelorn mother (Rebecca Hall), despite his pledges to mend his ways. Additional challenges come up in Ella’s dealings with her younger, socially inept brother, Casey (Spike Fearn), and his occasional girlfriend, Susan (Avo Edibiri), as well as the new governor’s strained relationship with her husband, Ryan (Jack Lowden), who struggles with the demands of his wife’s excessive workload. To help her cope with these issues, Ella turns to her zany, no-nonsense Aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), a confidante and surrogate mother of sorts to whom she turns whenever she needs advice (much of which is blunt, colorful and unconventional as only Curtis can dispense). Further insights are provided by Ella’s dutiful security detail chief (Kumail Nanjiani) and her trusted aide, Estelle (Julie Kavner), who doubles as the movie’s narrator. Along the way, the film thankfully fills in the characters’ back stories through a series of flashback sequences (a point on which many productions these days are woefully inadequate) and addresses a variety of key social and cultural themes to show that the picture has a conscience not to be ignored, a crucial element in an offering with political overtones. However, as should be apparent by now, that’s a lot of ground to cover in two hours, which is why this material would have been a better fit for the small screen than the big one. I would have loved to see each of these story threads expanded into episodes of their own, and a television slot would have allowed that. What’s more, given Brooks’s extensive history of producing long-running TV shows like The Simpsons, Rhoda and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, there are few in Hollywood better qualified than him to pull off something like this. Moreover, as charming as the characters are in this film, they engage in yet another screen exploration of the dysfunctional family theme, a concept the director has drawn on multiple times before in such films as “Terms of Endearment” (1983), “Broadcast News” (1987) and “As Good As It Gets” (1997), ground that the filmmaker has more than sufficiently covered already. While it’s true that “Ella McCay” has many elements going for it – great performances, terrific casting, engaging story threads, impressive character development and some decidedly good writing (especially when it comes to generating laughs) – the picture, regrettably, has difficulty pulling them all together, as if it were an overstuffed blender whose lid is precariously in danger of popping off. Clearly, some much-needed retooling of the project’s underlying concept and format is needed here, and, had that come to pass, this might have been yet another feather in Brooks’s storied cap. As it stands now, though, this will likely end up a largely forgotten item on the list of the director’s accomplishments (and that, as they say, is as good as it gets).
