ELEANOR THE GREAT
(director: Scarlett Johansson; screenwriter: Tory Kamen; cinematographer: Helene Louvart; editor: Harry Jierjian; music: Dustin O’Halloran; cast: June Squibb (Eleanor Morganstein), Erin Kellyman (Nina), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Roger), Jessica Hecht (Lisa), Rita Zohar (Bessie Stern), Will Price (Max); Runtime: 98; MPAA Rating: PG-13; producers: Jessamine Burgum, Kara Durrett, Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Lia, Celine Rattray, Trudie Styler, Keenan Flynn; Maven Screen Media/Sony Picture Classics; 2025)
“What makes Eleanor great or the film great is not clear to me.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The prolific Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson makes her directorial debut in a feature film written by Tory Kamen. It’s a heavy-handed, sentimental, and middlebrow personal drama centering around issues of loneliness and aging for its 94-year-old protagonist Eleanor (June Squibb), who pretends to be a Jewish Holocaust survivor. The film mixes comedy into its grim survival story.
Johansson, whose Jewish family was killed during the Polish uprising, shows she can function behind a camera and empathize with her protagonist.
Eleanor is a U.S. born widow who lives in Florida for decades with her widowed roommate Bessie Stern (Rita Zohar), a Jewish Holocaust survivor. Bessie is still tormented that her brother did not survive the Holocaust.
After Bessie dies, Eleanor moves in with her divorced daughter Lisa (Jessica Hecht) and grandson Max (Will Price) in their cramped New York City apartment. She joins a senior group in her synagogue’s Jewish Community Center, and when realizing it’s only for Holocaust survivors pretends to be one because she’s welcomed into the group and doesn’t want to leave.
She meets at the shul the 18-year-old NYU journalist student Nina (Erin Kellyman), an aspiring reporter whose father Roger (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a popular TV news commentator. Nina interviews her and she tells Bessie’s Holocaust story as hers. She believes she’s honoring her friend, but not realizing how her lie could cast doubt about real Holocaust vics with anti-Semites like Holocaust deniers.
Eleanor’s daughter wants her to go into a nursing home, which she resists until she doesn’t. No reason is given why she changes her mind.
What makes Eleanor great or the film great is not always clear to me. But it lays out a credible and warm story about an elderly grief-stricken woman facing lunbearable loneliness.
I appreciate the challenging performance of June Squibb, who gives the film some life.
It played at the Cannes Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 10/14/2025 GRADE: B-
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