An acquaintance of mine remarked last Christmas that there were very few children outdoors in Montrose on Boxing Day. I recalled his insightful observation during “Ella McCay” (20th Century Studios), showing now at the Montrose Playhouse. There are many scenes shot on the streets in the unnamed-capital-city location—but almost never anyone on them. The voiceover during the prologue anchors the events depicted within the film as taking place in 2008, a year drenched in political interest, when “we all still liked each other”—but presumably not enough to socialise outside. “Politics,” the narrator says, “is the only profession where people can drown in puddles.”
Ella, played by Emma Mackey, has become governor because her boss—popular, folksy Governor Bill, played by Albert Brooks, who reminded me of George W. Bush—has been promoted. “You really couldn’t have gotten this any other way,” he tells her. Ouch. As the new governor makes her inauguration speech, her predecessor passes her a note. “THANK ME!” it says. Two minutes later, after her speech tanks, boring the audience of notables to death, he passes another one: “Do not thank me or say my name.” The other notable that she fails to mention is her husband, Ryan, played by Jack Lowden, a rich pizza-restaurant owner with an deliciously overbearing mother. Mother only appears in one great scene; “Your mother’s smart,” she says, meaning herself, before directing her son to be “clear, strong, manly,” with his wife. “Or do you wanna be like your father?” Mother demands that Ryan bag a top job in the state government with an important-sounding title. Returning to the capital, he goes for the kill. “If I don’t have a job with a title,” he asks, “what’s my job here?” “Your job?” Ella asks. “Husband?” He then returns for further orders from Mother after his face-off: “What would you like me to say?” Ella asks. “Is that a real question?” Ryan replies. “O.K. then let me get back to you on that.”
Up until this point, Ryan’s qualities are defined by his breeding; “He comes from a normal family,” Ella says. “They have a great family business. They vote on family vacations.” And at their wedding Ella praises “your sense of family, your confidence, your optimism.” No-nonsense Aunt Helen, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, can’t stand him, especially because his pizza-chain business made an extra three hundred thousand dollars by “water[ing] his tomato sauce.” Ella’s agoraphobic twenty-something brother—who desperately needs a hair cut, and who uses his maths-geekery to predict sports results for betting clients, and informs her that “I don’t really like to get high before six.”—cancels all the talk of normal families. “Personally I’ve decided to not try to be normal and pick something easier,” he says. Me too.
Setting aside the melodrama, and the inability of the actors to keep their heads still while speaking, and the welling-up-on-demand tears, there’s one more serious flaw in “Ella McCay.” It is a remarkably persistent cliché that successful female leaders are too smart or too analytical or some such. Unfortunately the film tends to reinforce this trope. For example, the notion that Ella is boring (which as a character she is not): as well as the inaugural speech, a leadership meeting of hers is so tedious and packed with details that members of her new cabinet start snoring (which seems quite unlikely). This is played for a cheap laugh. When she says, “All I need is a place to think,” the opposite is true. That’s the last thing that will help. Bill suggests that she plays dumb with the cabinet; “[you are] poking them and their limitations.”
But the use of pointed comedy to lampoon aspects of down-and-dirty politics is surprisingly effective and gives rise to some consistently good writing. “If anything is wrong I really need not to know it;” “Get out while the going’s bad;” “We need to decide this news cycle;” “Are you my friend Bill?” “Under the circumstances that’s an extremely complicated question.” Great politician’s answer! There are many exchanges which remind me of a Sunday morning talk show on Sky News. When Ella gets the job, her personal assistant, who is also the narrator of the film, tells Ella that the lobbyists who arrived in droves “bombarded me with gifts under the ten-dollar limit.” And elsewhere there are some funny one-liners, such as in one scene between Casey and his girlfriend, “You’ve lost the thread of the conversation we were almost having.”
The lineage of “Ella McCay” includes integral participants from “The Simpsons” (1989-current). One of the film’s delights is that the role of the narrator and assistant is played by Julie Kavner, whose voice is one of the most famous on television—that of Marge Simpson. Plus the film is written and directed by the producer of “The Simpsons,” James L. Brooks. The superb orchestral score is by Hans Zimmer, one of the biggest names in the business. The playing is delightful, the tunes, while not exactly hummable, are pitch-perfect for the tone of the film, and the segues between different moods throughout are impeccable.
When Governor Bill hands over to Governor Ella, he explains how he has been successful and proffers some sage advice. “You have to make dumb people feel less dumb,” he says. “All those juicy brain cells,” he goes on, “will be[come] one stinking landfill of you.” Ella grimaces. “Hats off, Bill,” she says. “That one hurt.”
Adam Poole
19th December 2025
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