Eleanor the Great, review: Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut takes on Holocaust survivor trauma

Actor Scarlett Johansson makes her directorial debut with Eleanor the Great, a charming story of intergenerational friendship with a considerable splash of Jewish humour.

Eleanor (June Squibb) is a 95-year-old living with her best friend Bessie (Rita Zohar) in Florida. From Iowa, Eleanor converted to Judaism in 1953 when she married her husband. But Bessie, who she met years ago, is a Holocaust survivor from Poland.

Their companionship is at the heart of the film, although it’s no spoiler to reveal that Bessie passes away shortly after the film begins. Returning to New York, where she lived for 40 years, Eleanor moves in with her daughter Lisa (Jessica Hecht) and grandson Max (Will Price). A resolute character who, according to Max is going “to live forever”, Eleanor is sweet-natured, even if she can’t help but push her offspring’s buttons.

The plot evolves when Eleanor accidentally walks into a Holocaust survivors’ group. Asked to share her story, she begins to talk. But what comes out of her mouth is not her history, but Bessie’s, a narrative she knows so well from their years of friendship. Perhaps she simply misses her best friend, perhaps she’s lonely. But it’s a lie that soon escalates.

June Squibb and Erin Kellyman as Eleanor and Nina in Eleanor the Great[Missing Credit]

It is here that she meets Nina (Erin Kellyman), a young journalism student who wants to hear Eleanor’s story. Nina’s father Roger (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a presenter on a TV reportage show called The Fabric of New York, and like Eleanor, Nina is undergoing grief. Her mother, who was Jewish, died in a recent accident. Gradually, she and Eleanor bond, over their shared faith.

While Eleanor is initially reluctant to talk, the need for companionship overwhelms her and before long she is taking Nina to synagogue and showing up at bat mitzvahs. “Every Jewish woman should see what the faith has to offer,” she says. That she’s engaged in a deception perturbs hers (she even asks a rabbi about the biblical story of Jacob taking his brother Esau’s identity) but not enough to confess.

Scripted by Tory Kamen, Eleanor the Great is really about people’s coping mechanisms in the wake of trauma. “Jews fled Poland and never talked about what they went through,” says Eleanor. But in the wake of A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg’s robust treatment of survivor trauma, this film feels a little lightweight.

Squibb (Nebraska, Thelma), however, is a delight and Johansson has an innate understanding of how to get the best from her veteran star. Certainly, those reared on Johansson’s more art-house endeavours, such as Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, may be surprised by this commercial crowd-pleaser. Like the story itself, it will appeal to generations old and young.

★★★

Eleanor the Great screened at the Cannes film festival