Emma Mackey & Jamie Lee Curtis On Grief, Trauma & What Comes Next

Spoilers follow. Is it actually possible to recover from childhood trauma, or will the effects linger forever? That's the question Ella McCay asks, the new film from three-time Academy Award winner James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment, As Good as It Gets). Following Ella McCay, played by Emma Mackey (Barbie, Sex Education), the 34-year-old lieutenant governor juggles the grief of her mother's death as well as a strained relationship with her father, with help from her caring Aunt Helen, played by Jamie Lee Curtis (Freaky Friday, Everything Everywhere All At Once).

Ella exhibits signs of people-pleasing behaviour in both her work and personal life after watching her father repeatedly cheat on her mother. She seems doomed to repeat the cycle, trying her best to have a "normal" marriage with her husband Ryan (Jack Lowden), which results in her overcompensating to make him happy. Principal psychologist Carly Dober from Enriching Lives Psychology tells Refinery29 Australia this could be due to a need to "establish a false sense of safety" and notes it's a common trauma response. "People-pleasing can also be linked to emotional dependency. [This] occurs when someone has unmet psychological needs that they may try to satisfy within close interpersonal relationships," Dober says. "[It] is a pattern of behaviours people may engage in to get others to like them, and to avoid rejection, criticism, or embarrassment. It's linked to traits such as depression, anxiety and low self-esteem."

Mackey confirms that Ella McCay is a study of the "human condition", and tells us that's partly what drew her to the role. "The film is very much about cycles and cycles being broken, or not in a few cases, and about what you decide to make of yourself," Mackey tells R29. Throughout the film, her Aunt Helen acts like a driving force in her life, and calls out the behaviour of Ella's husband. Mackey notes it can be "unsettling" to have somebody by your side pointing out flaws or truths you want to avoid, but in some ways, there's a "comfort" to it as well. "She's the truth sayer, and says the uncomfortable thing when I don't want to hear it, and it's absolutely spot on every time," Mackey says. "And we all need one of those people in our lives just to bring us back to what's real and to make us think about it... and then we've got to work with it, work through it."

There's one particular line in the family that gives audiences a closer look into Ella's psyche, and that's when she admits she adores her husband because he comes from a "normal family". She deems it "normal" because his parents are still married, unlike Ella's own experience. It's telling that she prioritises this above other traits he possesses, such as his manipulative tendencies. By making choices rooted in trauma, she's ended up in the midst of another unhappy cycle. Curtis says these family dynamics and trauma portrayed in Ella McCay are what make this film feel so rooted in reality. "That's what makes movies so relatable, and particularly family movies, is that you can sit there and watch a movie as a family and realise your family is different from the family you're watching on screen, but there are a lot of similarities," Curtis explains. "Hopefully, families have an Aunt Helen, that person in your life who champions you even though you're getting battered."

As difficult as it is to see Ella's life crumble around her during the film, Mackey says it's important to stumble at times so you can succeed in the future. "Unless you [stumble], you have no perspective, and you don't know what's important," Mackey says. "You don't want to seek or search what you're curious about if you don't stumble a couple of, or a lot of times."

And while the drama-comedy tugs at the heartstrings, Curtis says she wants audiences to take away one thing. "There is no opposite word for trauma, but hope comes close," she says, quoting the film. "That, to me, is where you understand that even with traumatic experiences, hope for the future, hope for your family, hope for the world, hope for potential. All of it comes pretty close to being a counterpoint to the bad things that have happened."