James L. Brooks’ Ella McCay Sets Social Media Abuzz With First Reactions

James L. Brooks is back. After 15 years away, the guy behind 'Terms of Endearment' and 'Broadcast News' has a new comedy, 'Ella McCay'. Early buzz just hit, and it is... not the homecoming some were expecting. A couple folks are into it, but the first wave is mostly rough.

What this is

'Ella McCay' stars Emma Mackey (yes, from 'Sex Education' and 'Barbie') as Ella, a woman who has clawed her way through an emotionally messy life, pivoting from the law to politics. It is set in 2008, which is a very specific choice that several early viewers latch onto. Jamie Lee Curtis plays Ella's supportive aunt. Woody Harrelson shows up as the estranged dad who re-enters at the worst possible time. Rebecca Hall appears as Ella's late mother. The cast is stacked beyond that: Jack Lowden, Kumail Nanjiani, Ayo Edebiri, Spike Fearn, Julie Kavner, Becky Ann Baker, Joey Brooks, and Albert Brooks are all in the mix. The movie opens December 12.

First reactions are in

Critics and movie Twitter fired off their takes, and the split is wide. A couple of notes before the pile-on: one critic who liked it says it plays like a throwback character piece from the late 80s to mid 90s, and another called Albert Brooks the MVP. On the other side, multiple people are using words like 'incomprehensible' and 'baffling'. Also, there is apparently a tongue-in-cheek 'Ella McCay Challenge' floating around, which tells you how quickly this conversation got weird.

'Ella McKay is brutal... It just feels like Brooks doesn't have a handle on making a contemporary movie, even setting it in 2008 can't help it from feeling like an antique.'

• Chris Bumbray, who just gave 'Avatar: Fire and Ash' a rave, went hard the other way here, saying it is tough to square this film with the filmmaker who made 'Terms of Endearment' and 'Broadcast News', and that the 2008 setting still plays like a time capsule in the wrong way.
• User @adumbsandler called it baffling, claiming no one in the movie talks like an actual person, and labeled it unfunny, overwritten, with botched drama. They even dropped the 'one of the year's worst' hammer.
• Salon critic Coleman Spilde did not hold back: one of the worst and most incomprehensible he has sat through, felt like a half-written collection of ideas dug out of a folder, and the experience 'feels like talking with a concussion'. He then joined the so-called Ella McCay Challenge for good measure.
• Jonathan Sim (THR, Newsweek) laid out a laundry list: pointless narration, overwritten dialogue, behavior that plays like an alien's take on humans, and characters who literally announce their emotions. He called it incompetent filmmaking.
• On the sunnier side, Scott Menzel said it feels like a late-80s-to-mid-90s studio dramedy in a good way: simple, charming, character-driven, and anchored by a delightful Emma Mackey performance. He also pointed out that, at 85, Brooks is still aiming to tell relatable stories for a wide audience.
• Josh Parham (Next Best Picture) split the difference: sluggish and overstuffed compared to Brooks' best, but ultimately effective because of its earnest, traditional tone. He singled out the ensemble, with Albert Brooks as the standout.

Bottom line

This is one of those rare comeback swings that has people either rolling their eyes or nodding along with the old-school vibe. The cast is undeniably loaded, the 2008 setting is already a talking point, and the tone seems to land very differently depending on your tolerance for big-hearted, dialogue-heavy throwbacks. We will see where general audiences fall when it hits theaters December 12.