Review: ELEANOR THE GREAT

 by Rob DiCristino

Scarlett Johansson's directorial debut is…tricky.

For years after the death of their husbands, nonagenarian besties Eleanor (June Squibb) and Bessie (Rita Zohar) have shared an apartment. They’ve shared everything, really, even going so far as to squeeze a pair of twin beds into one bedroom so they can chat about the day’s goings-on well into the night. But once the gossip is dispensed with — including more than a few laughs at the expense of that teenage punk they totally owned at the grocery store — those conversations tend to get a little heavy. Bessie is a Holocaust survivor, you see, and Eleanor often loses sleep listening intently as Bessie reflects on the horrors of that time in her life. Why did Bessie survive the ordeal while her brother was killed? Why was she allowed to go on when so many others were taken away? “Maybe God let me live so that I could share my life with you,” Bessie tells Eleanor one night, a quiet but powerful affirmation of the bonds that can form between two people who have lost all pretense about themselves, people who know the value of each day spent with their best friend.

Bessie’s days are numbered, unfortunately, and when she finally passes away, Eleanor decides to return to her old New York City stomping grounds. Her daughter (Jessica Hecht as Lisa) and grandson (Will Price as Max) are happy to put her up in their Manhattan apartment until she finds a new place, even signing her up at the local Jewish community center. When she mistakes a singing class for a Holocaust survivor’s support group, however, Eleanor can’t stop herself from sharing a few of Bessie’s more devastating anecdotes as if they’re her own. An innocent mistake, maybe — and that’s a really, really big “maybe” — but when a journalism student observing the session (a charming Erin Kellyman as Nina) decides to make Eleanor the centerpiece of a project that includes a segment from her local news anchor father (Chiwetel Ejiofor as Roger), Eleanor finds herself stuck between revealing the truth of her deception and fostering an intergenerational friendship that might give her the strength to live another ninety years.

The feature debut from both director Scarlett Johansson and screenwriter Tory Kamen, Eleanor the Great is an ambitious, if deeply flawed, dramedy that dissects the debilitating intersection between grief, loss, and guilt. They tend to work in tandem, don’t they? Young Nina is still reeling from the death of her mother — not to mention the detachment it inspired in her father — so Eleanor would be forgiven if she felt that her lies were motivated by at least a tiny bit of altruistic generosity. But to what extent is she just scratching at a fleeting sense of purpose? She’s an old lady, you know, and it’s hard not to feel like she’s delaying the inevitable when Lisa tries to convince her that she’d be better off in a retirement community. “I still feel the same as I did at sixteen,” Eleanor tells Nina. “No one thinks old people think about sex, but we do. I feel sad about it.” But she’s finally feeling connected again! Nina’s inspired to write a piece that actually gets her father’s attention! They buy matching pantsuits! What’s it really matter if it all came from one little white lie?

It does matter, though, doesn’t it? She lied about being a Holocaust survivor. That’s objectively fucking awful, and while Johansson’s nimble direction gives June Squibb plenty of room to shape Eleanor into a dynamic character — though, it must be said, nowhere near as dynamic a character as she played in last year’s excellent Thelma — it’s hard not to get stuck on that incredibly sticky detail, especially when Kamen’s screenplay does everything it can to downplay its importance. Eleanor the Great necessarily shifts its focus to a larger message about grief in its last act — giving Chiwetel Ejiofor a heartwarming showcase scene to justify his acceptance of a role for which he is deeply overqualified — but its refusal to really deal with this original sin makes even Rita Zohar’s soul-crushing final monologue — one likely inspired by her time spent in a concentration camp — fall far flatter than it deserves to. Eleanor the Great should get credit for trying to juggle a variety of heavy subject matter, but that doesn’t ultimately absolve it from failing so spectacularly.

Still, Eleanor the Great has its heart almost entirely in the right place. It’s trying to get at something goopy and messy and real, and no handful of quibbles — however maddening they may be — should detract from the fact that Scarlett Johansson could have easily rested on her gigantic bed of Jurassic World residuals and not bothered with any of it. She wanted to make something of substance. She wanted to challenge her audience. Hell, she wanted to make a good movie, and she’s been in enough great ones to earn our confidence with this first rough proof of concept. She knew well enough to recruit June Squibb, at the least, a thundering, ninety-five-year-old badass who continues to bless our cinemas with her grace and charisma. Like Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit — which, incidentally, starred Johansson — before it, audiences will have to make up their own minds about just how “funny” the Holocaust can really ever be. For some, Eleanor the Great will be a bridge too far. But as Eleanor herself would argue, you could say that the ends may very well justify the means.

Eleanor the Great hits U.S. theaters on Friday, September 26th.