STARRING: Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis Jack Lowden, Kumail Nanjiani, Ayo Edebiri, Spike Fearn, Julie Kavner, Rebecca Hall, Woody Harrelson and James L. Brooks. Produced, written and directed by James L. Brooks, theme tune sung by James L. Brooks. Budget $35 million. Running time 115 minutes.
So each minute of this film cost $304,347 and 83 cents to make. If I were the backers I'd be asking for an itemised receipt.
It's 2008 and 34-year old Ella McCay (Emma Mackey) a fiesty, enthusiastic, sharp as a tack, bright as a spark lieutenant governor of an unnamed state somewhere in those wonderful United States of America, and of no particular political affiliation, one day becomes acting Governor when her boss, Governor Bill Moore (Albert L. Brooks) gets promoted to the White House Cabinet and resigns. He warns her that she has just 14 months until the election and to make the most of it. Ella, it turns out, is a dreamer and amazingly has a dream of passing a wonderful bill aimed at mothers and babies and the film charts her spectacular three-day rise and fall. Along the way we flashback to the break up of her parents (Rebecca Hall and Woody Harrelson), meet her surrogate mother and actual aunt, Hellen (Jamie Lee Curtis), her feckless husband Ryan Newell (Jack Lowden), her acrophobic and on the spectrum brother, Casey (Spike Fearn) and her octogenarian personal secretary Estelle (Julie Kavner).
This is one of those films where every man, be it Ella's father, brother, husband or boss are if not total shits, then very close to the edge shits, with only her ex-boss (James L. Brooks) showing even the vaguest of hints of being a decent person.
With a great cast and hmm, great locations, and a not half bad premise this certainly on paper seemed like a good bet, but the proof is in the eating and this eats like a rancid apple pie, sickly sweet and limp. The problem is there's too much happening and no time is spent getting to know Ella before another middling disaster rears its ugly head, we're told she's liked but hated because she cares too much and her speeches are too long. She's dealing with a father whose extramarital activities ultimately lead to the death of her mother and estranged them, her brother is a shut-in with enough emotional baggage to sink a ship, and her husband, who at first seems like a loyal and supportive kinda of a chap soon turns out to be the absolute worst and the main villain of the piece, as he tries to secure power for himself off his wife's relentless work, and if that means lying, cheating and framing her, so much the better. It's no wonder Ella's aunt warned her he was a ticking timebomb.
There's just so much going on here that you can never really get a handle on it, it moves like Dominic Toretto and its sickly sweet core begins to grate well before the ending finally skids into view. It's the sort of film that if made in the 1940s and starring Donna Reed, or Betty Davis would have been a charming, scatty screwball comedy, but in the hands of the usually dependable James L. Brooks, is reduced to a rather boring and instantly forgettable romcom without any rom and defo no com.
This is one of those films where every man, be it Ella's father, brother, husband or boss are if not total shits, then very close to the edge shits, with only her ex-boss (James L. Brooks) showing even the vaguest of hints of being a decent person.
With a great cast and hmm, great locations, and a not half bad premise this certainly on paper seemed like a good bet, but the proof is in the eating and this eats like a rancid apple pie, sickly sweet and limp. The problem is there's too much happening and no time is spent getting to know Ella before another middling disaster rears its ugly head, we're told she's liked but hated because she cares too much and her speeches are too long. She's dealing with a father whose extramarital activities ultimately lead to the death of her mother and estranged them, her brother is a shut-in with enough emotional baggage to sink a ship, and her husband, who at first seems like a loyal and supportive kinda of a chap soon turns out to be the absolute worst and the main villain of the piece, as he tries to secure power for himself off his wife's relentless work, and if that means lying, cheating and framing her, so much the better. It's no wonder Ella's aunt warned her he was a ticking timebomb.
There's just so much going on here that you can never really get a handle on it, it moves like Dominic Toretto and its sickly sweet core begins to grate well before the ending finally skids into view. It's the sort of film that if made in the 1940s and starring Donna Reed, or Betty Davis would have been a charming, scatty screwball comedy, but in the hands of the usually dependable James L. Brooks, is reduced to a rather boring and instantly forgettable romcom without any rom and defo no com.
Hats off to Jamie Lee Curtis, who delivers a solid performance and a sad pat on the back to Woody Harrelson who is soundly missused in this. The trailer made this out to be a witty, funny comedy about complicated lives. But in the end it's already, blissfully, slipping from my memory.
4/10
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