Emma Mackey and Jamie Lee Curtis navigate politics, family, and tribulations of love in a warm and winking …
Whoever coined the proverb, “You can pick your friends but not your family,” was onto something. There’s no end to the aggravation family can cause, and Emma Mackey‘s Ella McCay is about to discover how difficult it is to get ahead when people you left behind pop back into your life. James L. Brooks (The Simpsons, Broadcast News, As Good As It Gets) returns to the director’s chair after a 15-year hiatus, with today’s Ella McCay trailer highlighting his latest effort for the silver screen.
Today’s Ella McCay trailer offers another look at Brooks’ comedic drama, with plenty of dry wit from Jamie Lee Curtis, relatable frustration from Emma Mackey, and risk-taking from Spike Fearn. The preview spills a few beans regarding Fern’s courtship with Ayo Edeberi, but we love to see it.
Ella McCay stars Sex Education and Barbie actress Emma Mackey as Ella, a woman who’s fought for everything she’s achieved throughout her emotionally turbulent life as a lawyer turned political figure. Jamie Lee Curtis plays Ella’s supportive aunt, while Woody Harrelson plays Ella’s estranged father, who pops back into her life at the most inopportune time. Rebecca Hall plays Ella’s late mother, with Jack Lowden, Kumail Nanjiani, Ayo Edebiri, Spike Fearn, Julie Kavner, Becky Ann Baker, Joey Brooks, and Albert Brooks leading the cast.
Set in 2008, Ella McCay’s logline is: “An idealistic young woman juggles her family and work life in a comedy about the people you love and how to survive them.”
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter about the film’s setting, Brooks told the outlet, “The film is set in 2008, before we had this enormous division,” he said. “There’s a reason for that, and it’s because it’s not about that. The picture is about how to not make government service and political office something any sane person would flee from. In a movie like this, you’ve got to figure out what the heroism is, and chase that. What is it really that makes you a fine person? Is it a character that’s worth supporting for an entire movie? That’s what you aim for.”
Brooks also discussed casting Mackey as the film’s lead, saying he thought she was “brilliant” in Sex Education. She really is. You should watch that series. “I was in an audition process for a long time. I went to London, and very late in the game she turned up, and that was it,” Brooks said. “In my mind, I pictured the kind of heroines that we had in the ’50s and ’60s, early Katharine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell. There’s a certain kind of great movie star we used to have, and Emma has a lot of those same qualities.”
In today’s Ella McCay trailer, Ella (Mackey) is about to become the governor of the state she was born in and has a lot on her mind. People often say, “When it rains, it pours,” and that’s exactly what happens as Ella’s wayward father, brother, and husband complicate her life unexpectedly. Thank goodness she’s got her aunt (Curtis) to lean on, and a promising career ahead of her where the sky’s the limit.
Ella MacCay opens in theaters on December 12, 2025.
Source:
20th Century Studios
