“Eleanor the Great,” Scarlett Johansson’s first feature film as a filmmaker, is a moving drama of loss, friendship, and starting anew. The movie is mostly about June Squibb’s portrayal as Eleanor, a 94-year-old woman who moves to New York after her best friend Bessie dies. The movie is great at showing how close the characters are, but it makes a big mistake by using a very uncomfortable plot device: Eleanor pretends to be a Holocaust survivor to find friends.
A Touching Picture of a New Start
The movie starts with a warm, touching look into Eleanor’s life in Florida with her best friend, Bessie, who is also her best friend. Tory Kamen wrote the script, which does a great job of showing how simple and happy their lives are, from their regular beach workouts to their funny fights over pickles in the grocery store. This beautiful picture makes Bessie’s sudden death even more sad, and Eleanor has no choice but to start afresh.
Eleanor’s new life in Manhattan is very different. Lisa, her daughter, and Max, her grandson, take her in, but they seem more interested in putting her into an assisted living facility than making her feel better. Eleanor looks for friends elsewhere since she feels like a burden. She finds it at a Jewish Community Center, where she accidentally walks into a support group. People think she is a Holocaust survivor, and instead of correcting them, she starts relaying Bessie’s story as if it were her own.
A Problem That Comes From a Lie
This main falsehood starts out little, but it rapidly grows into a big problem for the spectator. Eleanor’s lie brings her and Nina, an NYU journalism student who has just lost her mother, together in an unexpected but charming connection. Nina takes comfort in Eleanor’s (stolen) story.
As the movie goes on, the viewer is left to wait for the deception to come out, which will be terrible. The review says that “very, very hard to watch Squibb in distress” and that the writing puts her and the spectator in an uncomfortable situation. The movie goes from being a deep look at bereavement to an uncomfortable story about “escalating hijinks.” When Nina’s dad, a local news anchor, decides to put Eleanor in a human-interest story for his show, the lie takes on a life of its own.
Even if the story has a big fault, the critic appreciates Johansson’s direction, which is called simple and timeless and lets the actors shine. The major reasons to attend the movie are the performances of June Squibb and Teyana Kellyman (as Nina), who tell a poignant and touching story about friendship and loss. “Eleanor the Great” is classified PG-13 and lasts for 98 minutes. It has a rating of two and a half out of four stars.