Movie Review: Emma Mackey battles political scandal and wooden script in ‘Ella McCay’
“I can’t trust my brain right now,” says our hero, Ella, deep into James L. Brooks’ bafflingly disjointed, uneven, unfunny and illogical “Ella McCay.” Movie Review: Emma Mackey battles political scandal and wooden script in ‘Ella McCay’ And finally, nearly two hours into a perplexing muddle of a storyline, we have some clarity of thought. No, dear, we want to tell Ella, played by the lovely Emma Mackey, who is truly the only reason to watch any of this. No, your brain is fine . It’s your script you can’t trust, Ella! Run away from it. Now. It’s hard to understand how “Ella McCay,” the first original feature from writer-director Brooks in 15 years, goes so utterly haywire. Is this really the same mind that wrote the memorable “Broadcast News”? “Terms of Endearment”? “As Good As It Gets”? We get a bit of a hint in the studio’s press notes, which mention that Brooks began his script “without a specific storyline in mind.” Hmm. Perhaps that explains this tangle of half-baked characters and subplots — …
