Ella McCay learns that even when you do everything right, past trauma and family drama can still upset your perfectly laid plans. Clever writing and strong acting performances augment this political dramedy, but foul language and frequent discussion of a couple’s “marital relations,” make it a bit too mature for teen audiences.
Ella McCay has done everything right up to this point.
She got the right grades. She went to the right law school. She backed the right political candidate. And now, at 34 years old, she’s just become governor.
By accident.
You see, Ella has never been one for campaigning. She’s the sort who’s more comfortable sitting behind a desk, not standing in front of a camera. When it comes to calling donors, Ella feels guilty asking for money: She’d rather be solving their problems. And when it comes to greasing the palms of her fellow politicians—well, quite frankly, Ella couldn’t care less about their problems.
But Ella’s boss, the affectionately known Governor Bill, has just been offered a position as Secretary of the Interior. And as lieutenant governor, Ella’s next in line for his gubernatorial position.
Ella never would’ve gotten anywhere without Bill. Unlike Ella, Bill is exactly the sort who knows how to work a crowd. He doesn’t mind calling up folks to ask for money. He’s built his career scratching the backs of fellow party members. Ironically, the only part of politics Bill isn’t so great at is the policymaking itself—but that’s why he picked Ella as his running mate. Ella’s policies are sound. And she has a knack for picking initiatives that truly help the people living in their state.
Without Bill’s support, there’s no way Ella would be living in the Governor’s Mansion today. Of course, even with Bill’s support, there’s a good chance she won’t be living there tomorrow.
Unfortunately, Ella’s family might be a political liability. Her dad, Eddie, is a serial adulterer. Little brother Casey has such debilitating anxiety that he hasn’t left his house in over a year. And Ryan, Ella’s husband, is (as Ella’s aunt, Helen, puts it) a “ticking time bomb”: Clearly, he thought he’d be playing a bigger role than husband.
Worse still, Ella’s political party hates her. Party members put up with her do-gooder ways while Bill was still functioning as their puppet, but they know they won’t be able to manipulate Ella into doing what they want.
Because Ella is incorruptible.
Because Ella does everything right.
Yep, Ella always tries to do the right thing—often to her own detriment—but she really does care about the people living in her state. She apologizes for her mistakes and makes amends when she can. She pushes for policies that actually help her constituents. And, as already hinted at, she refuses to compromise those policies to advance her own career.
Aunt Helen has always been there for Ella. She let Ella move in with her during Ella’s senior year so the teen wouldn’t have to transfer schools when her parents moved to a different state. When Ella’s mother passed away, Helen stood by her side, offering support. Helen goes to great lengths to protect Ella from people who would use her. And ultimately, she’s the one who helps facilitate an environment where Ella can let loose, where she isn’t burdened by the constant need to be prim and perfect.
Ella tells Casey that her favorite charity sends dentists to poor communities to provide free dental care to kids. As a result, these children feel more confident and smile more, she says. They stay in school and crime rates drop.
Ella proves herself to be a loving sister. As a teenager, she tried to protect the much-younger Casey from several traumatic experiences. As an adult, she regularly checks in on him to make sure he’s eating, bathing and otherwise taking care of himself. And she helps him through some relational issues, too.
Estelle (Ella’s assistant) and Nash (her driver and bodyguard) are devoted to Ella. They recognize the sacrifices she has made in order to make the world a better place—and they’ve been inspired to make the world better, too. Ella, in turn, takes a personal interest in their lives and treats them with respect.
Ella makes many personal sacrifices to help her family and to benefit the people she has sworn to serve.
Someone wisely tells a coworker going through a divorce that his kids don’t need him to spend money on them: They need him to simply be there and spend time with them.
In a moment of anger, a teenage Ella (in a flashback) shouts to God to spare her the agony of love—to which Helen looks up and says, “She doesn’t mean that, God.” Helen makes other brief but earnest prayers to the Lord. Ella says “God bless you, too” to someone over the phone. Ella and Ryan get married in a church. Someone tells a man to help Ella or “go to hell.”
The film’s narrator suggests that there are times when not forgiving someone can set you free—which is a direct contradiction of what the Bible says about the topic.
Ella says that she has tried to maintain a healthy intimacy with Ryan in spite of her busy work schedule. Toward that effort, we’re told, she even used an empty apartment inside a government building during her lunch hours so they could have “marital relations.” Unfortunately, because it’s technically against the law to use a government-owned building for unofficial business, these afternoon excursions turn into something of a political scandal. (People begin to call Ella “Little Miss Nooner” when they find out.)
Ella and Ryan were high school sweethearts. In a flashback, we see a teenage Ryan sneaking out of Ella’s window before school. Helen catches him and interrogates him, threatening to call his mother. Meanwhile, Ella tries in vain to clean her sheets (evidence of what they did). Later, Helen questions Ella, asking whether she and Ryan had sex (it’s implied they did) and whether they used contraception.
We see an adult Ella and Ryan lying in bed together, apparently wearing nothing under the sheets.
A flashback to when Ella was 16 shows that her dad was forced to retire after having multiple extramarital (consensual) affairs at work. In spite of this betrayal, Ella’s mom stays with him. Ella is disappointed by this choice, believing that her mom deserves much better—especially since Eddie is unremorseful for his actions and continues to cheat on his wife.
Two years later, Ella’s mother tragically passes away. And at her funeral, a woman squeezes Eddie’s behind while hugging him—tipping Ella off that Eddie continued to be unfaithful even when his wife fell ill.
In the present, Ella’s dad is still a bit of a scoundrel. He tells Ella that he’s in love with someone new and that he’s changed (though it’s suggested that he’s still a cheater). He tactlessly says he’s never felt this way about anyone—then, realizing he’s demeaning Ella’s mother, tries and fails to backtrack.
While speaking to an ex, a woman suggests that she has been seeing other people since their split. But she quickly recants when she realizes how hurt he is by this revelation. They eventually get back together and kiss.
Estelle, an elderly woman who has worked for Ella for years, says she’s “nuts” about Ella, though their relationship is purely platonic.
A group of reporters accidentally knocks Ella down when they shove through a doorway. Ella’s bodyguard helps her up and expresses concern that she may have a concussion from hitting her head, but she refuses to seek medical treatment.
When someone starts to call Ella the b-word, her bodyguard grabs the guy by the collar and verbally threatens him. A man gets himself arrested when he angrily manhandles a health inspector and then resists police officers. There’s a joke about castration.
The f-word is used twice. When Helen uses the word, she says, “I’ve never said that before, and I never will again.” We also hear about seven uses of the s-word mixed in with “a–,” “d–n” and “h—.” Someone uses the term “douchiness.” Jesus’ name is abused twice, and God’s name is misused another eight times.
Someone asks for forgiveness after saying “crap,” but we hear the word used by that person again (and elsewhere in the film).
Ella unknowingly consumes marijuana-laced food and drinks while visiting Casey’s house. She’s appalled when she learns the truth—since she campaigned against the legalization of medical marijuana—but she later says she enjoyed the feeling of being high, because it was the first time she felt like she didn’t have to fix things. While under the drug’s influence, she has a heart-to-heart with her brother about relationships and politics. And we learn the pair got high together on one other occasion.
Helen owns a bar, and a few scenes take place there with patrons drinking alcohol. Governor Bill jokingly tells Ella not to take Ambien (a sedative) more than three nights in a row.
Ryan and Ella’s marriage appears to be on the rocks. Ella wonders if Ryan only married her for the perks of her career (even when they were young, it was clear Ella had a big future in store). And Ryan’s foul behavior suggests this is true.
When Ella forgets to thank Ryan for his support during a speech (because she gets flustered by unexpected interruptions from Governor Bill), Ryan essentially throws a temper tantrum. He uses the incident to try to convince Ella to get him a political position (egged on by his mother, who belittles her own husband). He then resorts to unscrupulous means to manipulate and embarrass Ella, holding the threat of divorce over her head.
We’re told that other politicians despise Ella. Her very presence reminds them of their own inadequacies as policymakers and compromises they’ve made as politicians. (At one point, Ella criticizes the majority of her fellow politicians for spending more time campaigning than they do reading proposed legislation.) Even Bill, when Ella asks him for advice, is hesitant to openly support Ella, since it could hurt his own career. As such, the film seems to serve as a commentary on the political state at large: Ella literally says, “You can’t be popular and fix anything.”
Not long after Eddie’s affairs come out, Helen hugs him and tells him she loves him but that she’ll never forgive him for cheating on his wife. Years later, Eddie seemingly tries to make amends with his children, but it’s fueled by a selfish desire, since his current girlfriend told him she wouldn’t marry him unless he made up with his kids. And when Helen tells Eddie that he needs to stop messing up long enough for his kids to forgive him and do the work required to fix his relationships, he retorts that his kids will “be better” once they forgive him.
We learn that Ella’s mom passed away young, though we’re not given the details of what caused her death. Eddie admits that he sent Casey to military school after her death because he “didn’t want the responsibility” and that he avoided Ella because he was scared of how she’d react to that decision. (At the film’s start, he and Ella haven’t spoken in 13 years.)
A politician uses a cheat sheet of sorts while calling donors to make it seem like he cares about them. People lie, scheme and manipulate others. We hear about political blackmail and bribery. Casey’s job involves advising people on sports betting. A trooper assigned to Ella’s protection unit purposely goes into overtime in spite of a budget crisis because he’s tight on cash and apparently going through an expensive divorce.
Casey is described as agoraphobic because he hasn’t left his house in 13 months. However, he insists that his reclusiveness is a choice—that he can leave whenever he wants. But he does seem to have some severe anxiety about leaving, and we learn that his self-imposed solitary confinement followed an embarrassing romantic mishap. His house is littered with dirty dishes and bags of trash.
A woman gets petty revenge against someone by calling the health department on his pizzeria and getting it shut down.
[Spoiler warning] Ryan, in a strange grab for attention, starts a political scandal for Ella involving blackmail and bribery. He gives Ella an ultimatum, and Ella responds that if he loved her—if he even liked her—he wouldn’t be doing this to her. Because Ryan doesn’t get what he wants, he blames the blackmail and bribery on Ella, telling the press that he’s divorcing her. And the scandal, though completely fabricated, is bad enough for her party to remove her from office.
Early on in her life, Ella is told, “You can be a force for good.”
She takes that edict to heart. She believes the best way to help people is by becoming a politician, by making and passing laws that will serve the greater good.
Unfortunately, Ella gets steamrolled by the complexities of bureaucracy. She’s put down by colleagues who would rather see her fail than help her succeed. And, let’s face it, Ella’s personal trauma with her family plays a role in how she micromanages every aspect of her life.
But somehow, even with party members rooting for her to crash and burn, even with family members creating additional fires for Ella to put out, Ella never gives up hope that she can truly make a difference. “There’s no opposite word for trauma,” we’re told, “but hope comes close.”
Now, despite that nice message, the film itself does still have some concerning content. Foul language, including two uses of the f-word, is common. One scene shows Ella and Ryan presumably post-coital, and discussions about their “marital relations” serve as a key plot point. And the movie also takes a favorable stance on marijuana, with Ella spending a night intoxicated by the drug.
I certainly wouldn’t recommend Ella McCay for teens. But for discerning adults looking for a party-neutral political comedy (the film never actually mentions Ella’s political leanings, the state she’s governor of or even her party), this movie just might hit the mark with clever writing and strong acting performances.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
