ELEANOR THE GREAT (2025)
Directed by Scarlett Johansson
Sony Pictures Classic, 98 minutes, PG-13 (language, inferences)
★★★
June Squibb’s later-in-life career was resurrected when she appeared in Alexander Payne’s Nebraska in 2013. She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress and has been in demand ever since. Some have dismissed her as a sort of Betty White Lite, though Ms. Squibb’s career has been far more substantive. White died at age 99 in 2021, so perhaps it’s time to crown Squibb as the queen of defying ageism, though she prefers pricking its hide with satirical barbs. At the same time, though, questions persist whether she lampoons ageism, or merely supplanted assumptions that the elderly are senile with stereotypes of comical cranks and rebels.
Scarlett Johansson made her directing debut in Eleanor the Great with June Squibb in the titular role. She plays Eleanor Morgenstein, a 94-year-old Jewish woman who has returned to New York City (from Florida) because her best friend and roommate Bessie Stern (Rita Zohar) has died. Shall we say that her new roommate, her daughter Lisa (Jessica Hecht), is all the things Bessie was not: pushy, frantic, judgmental, and a terrible listener. Eleanor quickly surmises that Lisa is too busy to pay attention to her, a truth reinforced in flashback sequences in which Bessie pours out her Holocaust survivor’s guilt and pain. Lisa wants her mother to go to the local Jewish Community Center in the belief that it’s simply a benign holding cell for old Jews. (For the record, Ms. Squibb is Jewish, having converted when she married Charles Kakatsakis in 1959.) In a classic screw up, Eleanor accidentally wanders into a support group for Holocaust survivors and, when pushed to speak, appropriates Bessie’s stories as her own, a feeble and misguided attempt to feel as if she belongs.
Eleanor’s moving story–it’s not hers, but her mind is obviously sharp enough to remember and recreate what Bessie told her–makes her an instant celebrity among the group. It also catches the ear of Nina Davis (Erin Kellyman), a college journalism student working through grief of her own; her mother has recently died and she has lost her moorings. Analogous to Lisa, Nina’s father Roger (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a successful-but-harried news anchor. Despite gaps of age, religion, race, and experiences Eleanor and Nina become close friends. In Nina’s eyes, the world-wise Eleanor becomes a mother substitute.
All is well until Nina wishes to profile Eleanor for a class project. Eleanor plays her assumed role so well that Nina’s father wants to profile Eleanor for a news story. Nina is hurt as dear old dad is stealing her story and Eleanor reluctantly agrees to go on the air. As generally happens in movies and in life, the bigger the lie, the deeper the hurt, humiliation, anger, and psychological damage is left in the exposure wake.
The problem with a story such as this is how to end it. Johannson wiggles out of it, but only in a sort of way that leaves her open to accusations of schmaltz, romanticism, and contrivance. Each is a valid interpretation of Eleanor the Great. Johannson came in for criticism–some of it unkind. I wonder, though, if the larger problem lies in the genre often tagged comedy-drama. It’s hard to laugh your way out of cultural misappropriation, as many have found out when caught lying about combat experiences, family pedigrees, academic honors, or in the case of ex-Congressman George Santos just about everything! Johannsson and script writer Tory Kamen opted for a soft landing that is sentimental in a mawkish way. Isn’t this a circumstance that calls for drama, not smiles and fluff?
For all of this, Eleanor the Great ranks at the top end of so-so movies. Squibb is a portrait of being conflicted but naïve, Kellyman is moving as a broken-hearted not-quite-a-woman, and Ejiofor is convincing as the kind of newsman who eats nails for breakfast. In other words, they work well together because each is distinct. I’m not surprised that most critics found it hard to whip up enthusiasm for the movie, or that the box office was less than $5 million. But if we lash our swords to the wall above the fireplace, Eleanor the Great can be seen as Eleanor the Pretty Good.
Rob Weir
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