James L. Brooks’ new comedy “Ella McCay” is such a nice movie that the fact that it isn’t really very good doesn’t matter much; you enjoy watching it, even though when it’s over you’ll struggle to remember much about it. The title character, played by Emma Mackey, is an idealistic young politician about to become governor of an unnamed state in 2008 (“back when we all still liked each other,” as a lovable narrator played by Julie Kavner tells us), but her arrival in her new position is marked by scandal: A reporter has learned that Ella has been having romantic trysts with her husband (Jack Lowden) on government property. (Am I wrong that this does not seem like an actual scandal? Even in 2008? Honestly, if a politician did that today, I think we’d find it kind of adorable.)

Anyway, so poor Ella — who is an extremely smart, hardworking, rule-following policy wonk — is very upset about this, and also struggling with a complicated web of family relationships: her semi-estranged father (Woody Harrelson), her agoraphobic brother (Spike Fearn), her loyal but often meddlesome aunt (Jamie Lee Curtis). It’s a lot, but this is the kind of movie where everything gets nicely worked out, even if it involves one character having a completely unbelievable swerve to absolute villainy (not to mention stupidity) mid-movie, and one of many happy endings taking place on Hope Street, which seems a tad spot-on.

Mackey, who has an appealing Anne-Hathaway-crossed-with-Emma-Stone vibe, is perfectly charming as Ella; no small feat as it seems that this character, in the wrong hands, could be quite unbearable. Ella is, surely not by accident, reminiscent of Holly Hunter’s Jane Craig in Brooks’ 1987 classic “Broadcast News”: a young woman who takes no pleasure in her own extreme competence. (I just took a moment to remember, with immense pleasure, the scene in which Hunter’s character is told unkindly that it must be nice to always think you’re the smartest person in the room. “No,” she says, in a horrified whisper, deadly serious. “It’s awful.” No moment in “Ella McCay” remotely measures up to this one, but it’s nice to have an excuse to think about it.)

“Ella McCay” is the kind of movie you actually don’t see very often these days: a big-studio offering with an A-list cast (boo for giving Ayo Edebiri almost no screen time) that’s not a franchise or a disaster movie, just a gentle comedy about a (mostly) nice group of people. If Brooks could have mustered up a screenplay half as good as “Broadcast News,” this movie would have been a delight; instead, it disappears into agreeable blandness and earnest platitudes. It’s not at all unpleasant spending two hours with Ella and her family and colleagues, but it leaves you feeling a little nostalgic for what it could have been.

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'ELLA MCCAY'

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for strong language, some sexual material and drug content)

Running time: 1:55

How to watch: In theaters Dec. 12

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