"I can't trust my brain right now," says our hero, Ella, deep into James L. Brooks' bafflingly disjointed, uneven, unfunny and illogical "Ella McCay." And finally, nearly two hours into a perplexing muddle of a storyline, we have some clarity of thought. No, dear, we want to tell Ella, played by the lovely Emma Mackey, who is truly the only reason to watch any of this. No, your brain is fine (and by the way, what a depressing line to put in the mouth of your most intelligent character — a hard-working woman in politics). It's your script you can't trust, Ella! Run away from it. Now. It's hard to understand how "Ella McCay," the first original feature from writer-director Brooks in 15 years, goes so utterly haywire. Is this really the same mind that wrote the memorable "Broadcast News"? "Terms of Endearment"? "As Good As It Gets"? We get a bit of a hint in the studio's press notes, which mention that Brooks began his script "without a specific storyline in mind." Hmm. Perhaps that (unintentionally) explains this tangle of half-baked characters and subplots — each more head-scratching than the next, but also boring — and an ending that's unbelievable, by which we mean not believable. What's even less believable is that smart supporting actors like Jamie Lee Curtis, Ayo Edebiri, Woody Harrelson and Rebecca Hall didn't walk out in protest of a lack of coherence. (Well, actually, Hall is gone in a matter of minutes.) The main action takes place over three days in 2008, in an unnamed state. An aggressively folksy Julie Kavner as narrator tells us Ella is a great person, and super-bright, and at 34, one of the youngest people to serve as lieutenant governor. She's also a moral compass — both in the dog-eat-dog world of politics, where she just wants... Read More