Celine Song Hails Critically Panned Box-Office Bomb ELLA MCCAY as Her Favorite Movie of 2025
Ella McCay Gets Some Love from Acclaimed Movie Director
Filmmaker Celine Song has chosen the critical box-office disappointment, Ella McCay, as her favorite movie of 2025.
It’s not every day that a talented film director admits a movie that bombed at the box-office and was bashed by critics was really good. That day is now as Variety made it known that Materialists director, Celine Song, liked Ella McCay, a movie with just a 22% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a whole lot. I can see the appeal but not many others will, considering the film’s tepid reception at the box-office. Ella McCay earned less than $4 million at the domestic box-office and received a lukewarm “B-” CinemaScore grade from opening night viewers.
Now, it should also be stated that Ella McCay director, James L. Brooks, has also praised Song’s big movie of 2025, Materialists. Song simply loved Brooks’ masterpiece from the late 1980’s, Broadcast News, and she saw something rich in the situations that Brooks presented in Ella McCay. It’s understandable that Brooks’ film could be interpreted as a movie about a strong independent professional woman and is, indeed, about one. Unfortunately, many reviewers were sidetracked by the subplots that were sprinkled into the box-office dud such as one that I despised featuring Ayo Edebiri.
To say Song has come onto the Hollywood movie scene quite strong would be a gross understatement. Her 2023 movie, Past Lives, was the best movie of the year, according to me, at least, and garnered many award nominations from the critics’ branches and received an Oscar nomination for its razor-sharp script. Song’s Materialists was a modest, but pretty successful, box-office hit from A24 and made my list of the 10 best movies of 2025.
Ella McCay was one of my most anticipated movies of 2025. I thought surely that Brooks would be able to help get his career back on track with it. That didn’t happen, however, if he touched just a few people with his story of the strong independent politician played by Emma Mackey, then I suppose his film isn’t half as bad as some of its detractors feel it is. Rogerebert.com also liked the movie so Song is not alone in her praise of the movie.
Song is a visionary when it comes to romance movies, and her stamp of approval should help Ella McCay do better on streaming services where the risk isn’t as big as buying what could be a nearly $20 movie ticket, depending on where you live. If one thing is almost for certain, an artist will see a movie differently than the general public will. There’s a lot to like about Ella McCay and its co-star, Jamie Lee Curtis, is quite simply, a living legend. It’s thus easy to get why a talented cinematic artist like Celine Song picked Ella McCay as her favorite movie of 2025. Interestingly enough, Barry Levinson picked the unconventional Dead Man’s Wire as his favorite film of 2025, suggesting that directors’ tastes vary greatly from the general critical consensus
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