- Content: “Funny and Genial, but Flawed”
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What You Need To Know:
ELLA MCCAY is a light, genial comedy with some good laughs and a star-making performance by Emma Mackey in the title role. The other actors do a good job as well. However, the dialogue in a long scene between Ella and her younger brother, Casey, slows down the plot. Later, though, there’s a funny, touching scene between Casey and his ex-girlfriend. ELLA MCCAY is marred by slightly excessive foul language and a Romantic worldview with some light liberal, feminist facets and utopian views. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.
Content:
Strong Romantic worldview overall with some liberal, feminist facets where one husband cheats on his wife and another husband is greedy for power and resents his wife’s political clout so he betrays her by framing her for bribery, mitigated by some idealistic moral desires to help people in need and support family members who aren’t duplicitous;
About 27 or so obscenities and profanities, including 16 obscenities (including one “f” word), two strong profanities using the name of Jesus, and nine light profanities, such as OMG, for G-d’s sake and Dear Lord;
Light comical violence when woman walks to open a wooden door in a conference room, and she’s bowled over by a group of reporters bursting through the door;
No sex scenes, but married couple lies in bed in one scene, and title character’s married father is said to be a womanizer who’s fired from one job for harassing female employees;
Upper male nudity in bedroom scene;
Brief alcohol use;
No smoking or illicit drugs, but man advises woman to take Ambien three nights in a row; and,
Strong miscellaneous immorality such as man tries to bribe reporter and frames his political wife out of revenge, wife finds out husband greedy for power had lied to her about how the reporter had uncovered a small financial scandal (the married couple had innocently used a government office to share an intimate lunch every day because the wife was working hard at her new job as lieutenant governor), title character never really reconciles with her father who cheated on her mother, father keeps putting his foot in his mouth when trying to reconcile with his daughter (father’s moral compass is flawed), and young man earns a living by helping other people involved in sports gambling.
More Detail:
The movie is lightly narrated by Lt. Governor Ella McCay’s secretary, Estelle, in Ella’s office in the state capitol building. Estelle begins by saying, “Some people get born into stable, loving families. Then there’s the rest of us.” with a family scene 17 years ago, in 1991, when Ella’s promiscuous father, Eddie, is kicked out of his prestigious hospital admin job for fooling around with female employees. Ella’s mother, Claire, decides not to divorce Eddie and even to follow him to California, where he’s lined up another management position. Ella is skeptical of her father and tells her parents that her father is just going to cheat on her mother again. Ella is a senior in high school and doesn’t want to move to California, so her father’s spinster sister, Helen, agrees to let Ella stay with her.
Cut to a couple years later, at her mother’s funeral. Ella’s relationship with her father is still chilly. It becomes even more chilly when she watches some woman briefly grab her father’s buttocks during a friendly hug.
In 2008, Ella arrives at her office, where the Governor, Bill, tells her he’s probably going to be picked for a cabinet position in the new president’s administration. Barack Obama’s name isn’t mentioned, but the governor’s news gives the perceptive moviegoer a glue as to which political party Ella and the Governor belong, the Democrat Party.
Ella is anxious but excited about the prospect of becoming Governor. She’s an idealistic politician and is excited about getting a chance to get her passion project, a childcare bill for single mothers, through the legislature. However, Bill warns her that being Governor is not so easy. He also tells her she needs to be more practical and play her cards closer to the vest. Bill gives Ella one last piece of advice, “Don’t take Ambien more than three nights in a row.”
Of course, once she’s sworn in as Governor, Ella doesn’t take his advice and, in her inauguration speech, wears her liberal heart on her sleeve. She wants to use the last 18 months of Bill’s term to forge a new day for the state’s citizens. As she tells her younger brother in one scene, “I can make people’s lives better.”
Ella’s dreams hit a snag when she and her husband, Ryan, are hit by a small financial scandal. Ryan offers to help if Ella will agree to talk to a reporter who uncovered the scandal. Ella refuses, so Ryan tries to fix things on his own. He only makes the situation worse, however, and he eventually betrays her to protect his own skin.
Meanwhile, Ella’s father tries to reconcile with her, but he keeps putting his foot in his mouth. Also, her younger brother tries to get back with his ex-girlfriend after botching a conversation a year ago.
ELLA MCCAY is a light, genial comedy with some good laughs, solid jeopardy and a star-making performance by Emma Mackey in the title role. The other actors do a good job as well, though a long talky scene with Ella’s younger brother, Casey, where she’s trying to unburden herself to him about being Governor, slows down the story with dialogue that seems convoluted and confusing in parts.
Later on, however, there’s a funny, touching scene where Casey tries to reconnect with his ex-girlfriend, Susan. When Casey and Susan last talked a year ago, Casey was shy and hesitant about discussing his feelings for her, but now he wants to correct that mistake. However, he goes about it in a funny, roundabout way that adds suspense to the scene. Will Susan agree to be his steady girlfriend? The scene is very cute and funny, and Spike Fearn and Ayo Edebiri do a great job. It’s a good scene, but it makes one wish that the movie had been about these two characters, not the sister, Ella.
ELLA MCCAY has a Romantic worldview with some light liberal, feminist facets.
For example, the title character, Ella’s, father is a womanizer who’s trying to reconcile with his daughter, but she’s reluctant. Also, Ella’s husband, Ryan, betrays her by talking to a reporter about their personal relationship and misuse of the room under a stairwell in the capitol building. [SPOILERS FOLLOW] Ryan told her the reporter had contacted him, but he eventually confesses it was he who first contacted the reporter. To make matters worse, Ryan uses the scandal to force Ella to give him a title. “If I don’t have a title,” he asks Ella, “I’m your what?” “Husband?” she replies. “That is a hard thing to put on a parking space,” he retorts. Ella refuses to be forced to give Ryan a title, so he really betrays her by making up a story that she wanted him to bribe the reporter. This leads to the movie’s final big plot problem and resolution.
Thus, as the narrator indicates from the beginning, the filmmakers behind ELLA MCCAY have a skeptical view of the Family as an institution. The view is a bit feminist in that it depicts husbands as unreliable. Ella’s father betrays his wife because of his sexual lust, while Ella’s husband betrays her because of his greed for power. The biggest saving grace in the movie regarding men is Ella’s brother, who’s depicted as shy and a little bit wacky, but sincere. He’s a “beta male,” however, not an “alpha male.”
The movie’s liberal views also come out in its view of political issues, including the role of the government. Thus, ELLA MCCAY sides with Ella’s view that government is there to “make people’s lives better.” Thus, Ella’s focus is to pass a childcare bill for single mothers. The movie doesn’t provide any details on what kind of program she wants. It could be just a bill that sends taxpayer money to single mothers who need some money for childcare. However, given the movie’s tone, it sounds more like a big government program with paid state bureaucrats working at the state and local level. Of course, historically, these types of government social welfare programs have actually hurt families and children because they force women into a permanent underclass who’ve married the government. These programs have also created a permanent underclass of single, wayward and often unemployed men with little to no connection to their children, much less to their children’s mother. Another scene depicting the movie’s liberal values is a scene featuring a private group that provides legal and other help to people about to be kicked out of their apartments or homes. At least that scene features a private charity. Finally, in the lengthy scene with her younger brother, Casey, when Ella vents her hopes and frustrations to him, Ella asks him, “Would you like to hear about my favorite community health program?” Casey must have heard Ella’s social, political spiels countless times before, so he replied, “G-d no!”
Ultimately, all these political aspects to ELLA MCCAY reveal a liberal political perspective, but they’re often undercut by some humor. For example, there’s not only the brother’s reply in the scene mentioned above, there’s also a scene where Ella has her first meeting with all the top people in her new administration in the morning. She starts giving the people in the conference room a detailed explanation of the programs. Cut to hours later, with the windows showing that it’s nighttime, and Ella’s still talking, but half the people are asleep. Here, the movie clearly mocks the attitude of the liberal do-gooder and policy wonk who puts people to sleep with their detailed plans for creating “Utopia” on Earth. As MOVIEGUIDE® Founder and Publisher Dr. Ted Baehr has noted to the staff, Utopia is a Greek word meaning “No place.” Thus, Utopia doesn’t really exist.
ELLA MCCAY also has some slightly excessive foul language, with one really strong obscenity and two really strong profanities. So, considering this and the movie’s Romantic worldview, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.
