As a cocreator of several of the greatest sitcoms ever produced, and later the writer and producer of classic big screen dramedies like Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News and As Good As It Gets, James L. Brooks may be one of the greatest “yes and” dramatists in the history of Hollywood.

The term is a core principle in improv comedy that means that one accepts and builds upon others ideas, pushing them beyond their easiest punch line or payoff. Especially in his films, he’s done this repeatedly by extending scenes much longer than their conventional or perceived conclusion. It’s worked multiple times to Oscar-winning effect, as he reconstituted and expanded ideas into funny, relatably, devastating portraits of human vulnerability. Rightfully, he’s cultivated disciples in the likes of Cameron Crowe and Judd Apatow (among many others) who have drawn heavily from his inspiration, becoming a sort of boilerplate or brand name for adult dramas that are as hilarious as they are tear-wringing.

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Ella McCay marks the writer-director-producer’s first feature in 15 years, and sadly, time has not been kind to this former titan of a certain kind of film — a kind that it’s equally sad to report is no longer as popular or effective as it once was, either. Chaotic, disjointed and worst of all phony where virtually all of its predecessors exuded an authentic, even uncomfortable relatability, Brooks’ latest mistakes a cumulative approach for an additive one, throwing ideas so frantically at his skillful cast that they’re too busy saying “yes and” to seek answers to the much better question, “but why”?

Emma Mackey Plays A Prototypical James L. Brooks Protagonist, But The Character Lacks Her Predecessors’ Spark

Emma Mackey (Julia Ducournau’s Alpha) plays McCay, an overachieving 34-year-old lieutenant governor who lands an unexpected promotion when her boss “Governor Bill” (Albert Brooks) receives an offer to join the Cabinet of (an unseen) Barack Obama. Bill exudes the superficial charisma needed to charm voters or donors; Ella is a tireless policy wonk with more tenacity than diplomacy. She’s married to Ryan (Jack Lowden), a golden retriever of a husband with little ambition of his own, but who seemingly worships at the altar of her achievements.

Even as she equivocates about the prospect of becoming the youngest governor in the country, Ella is distracted by worries about her estranged younger brother Casey (Spike Fearn). Though he lives nearby, Casey developed agoraphobic tendencies after their father Eddie (Woody Harrelson), an inveterate philanderer, shipped him off to military school following the death of their mother (Rebecca Hall) during their childhood. To add to the budding politician’s growing list of distractions, her outspoken aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) attempts to broker a reconciliation between Ella and Eddie, who claims he’s prepared to apologize and take accountability for his many peccadilloes.

Brooks possesses a unique skill for making audiences love characters that they may not always like, from Shirley MacLaine’s Aurora Greenway in Terms of Endearment to Jane (Holly Hunter), Tom (William Hurt) and Aaron (Albert Brooks) in Broadcast News to Jack Nicholson’s Melvin Udall in As Good As It Gets. In this film, he works overtime to make it hard to love or like any of these characters, starting with Ella: her passion for her work qualifies as undeniably admirable, but her insistence on steamrolling any and everyone in her path to accomplish some pretty challenging goals makes her feel less like a crusader or true believer than a tireless scold. (As you watch her acceptance speech for the governor job turn into a laundry list of action items, the initial charm that her do-gooder persistence carried wears quickly off — and depressingly, doesn’t return.)

What quickly becomes difficult to ascertain is exactly how a type-A student-body-president type ended up with such a dopey (and eventually, villainous) partner — much less for some 12 or more years? Via disapproving aunt Helen, we are informed that some in Ella’s inner circle raised red flags about him earlier in their relationship. But what eventually happens between them isn’t merely a heel turn, but the kind of dramatic pivot that feels more the byproduct of an aggressive rewrite than the complicated but believable characterizations for which Brooks was previously known.

These are not just two different types of people, they’re two people it becomes impossible to believe ever would have understood each other well enough to get together in the first place, much less with enough consistent passion to create a literal scandal in her political career for having a series of “nooners” on government property.

Meanwhile, Ella’s long-simmering conflicts with her brother and especially her father fuel superficial insights at best about siblings, parents and children, and seem deliberately designed to explain her adult mistakes and complicate the plot rather than flesh out the world of this ambitious, troubled individual. The mumbling Fearn, who was largely incomprehensible and entirely obnoxious in Fede Alvarez’ otherwise terrific Alien: Romulus, is fully insufferable here as Ella’s brother Casey. There is an undeserved amount of time spent on, alternately, his social disorder the movie seems terrified to formally diagnose, and a romantic relationship that is so superfluous to the rest of the film that you’re wondering why it was in there at all.

Ayo Edebiri (left) and Spike Fearn in james L. Brooks' Ella McCay

Bafflingly, Ayo Edebiri plays Casey’s inexplicably forgiving would-be girlfriend, and she’s given literally two scenes (one wordless) to convey why this luminous young woman would possibly be interested in a twitchy sports-betting handicapper. I’m sorry to report that she does not accomplish this modest goal. But hers is far from the only wasted performance in the film: bereft of dimensionalized, remotely cohesive characters, everyone from Mackey to Kumail Nanjiani (as the equally principled head of Ella’s security detail) seems to be waiting to be given an acting choice, any choice, that will give their role purpose or meaning. Only Curtis as Helen seems to evade the lackluster writing, though perhaps only because her character’s personality is so oversized you can’t look away whenever she’s on screen.

Ultimately, there are few filmmakers whose work I admire more for its sophistication and undeniable humanity than that of Brooks, but this film isn’t just bad — it’s unbearable. Unbearable to watch a storyteller flop so catastrophically at this late stage in his career. And honestly unbearable to watch a once-vital genre that has struggled increasingly to attract enough money to generate new entries, and then deliver one this lousy.

As indicated above, Ella McCay is set in 2008, during the Obama administration. One imagines the choice was made because it feels more believable at that time that a young politician could embody such unbridled idealism and hope. Unfortunately, that setting only underscores how much has changed in the intervening years, though in this case less politically than cinematically: James L. Brooks was then still a pretty great filmmaker, but a few Presidents later the most common refrain his work earns isn’t “yes and,” but “no thanks.”