Eleanor the great

Scarlett Johansson’s Eleanor the Great arrives as one of the most curious films of the year, not only because it marks the directorial debut of one of Hollywood’s most recognizable stars, but also because it dares to explore terrain that feels both tender and deeply controversial. It is a small film on the surface, intimate and focused, but beneath it lies a complex tangle of grief, memory, identity, and deception. At the heart of it all stands June Squibb, at ninety-five years old, a performer experiencing what many have gleefully dubbed the “Squibbaissance.” Following her scene-stealing turn in Thelma, Squibb finds in Eleanor a role that showcases her wit, her bite, and her uncanny ability to layer vulnerability beneath acerbic humor. Watching her on screen, one can’t help but feel that this late-career flowering is cinematic justice finally delivered to a woman who spent decades waiting in the wings.

The film introduces us to Eleanor Morgenstein, a brassy, sharp-tongued widow who has spent her retirement years in Florida living with her inseparable best friend, Bessie (played with remarkable restraint and quiet gravity by Rita Zohar). Their life together, captured in delicate opening sequences framed by Hélène Louvart’s sensitive camera, is full of warmth and mundane intimacy: grocery runs, gossip, Shabbat dinners. But when Bessie suddenly dies, Eleanor’s world collapses. She uproots herself and returns to New York to live with her daughter Lisa (Jessica Hecht) and grandson Max (Will Price), neither of whom seems to have the time or patience to make her feel less alone. It is here, amid the chaos of midlife divorce and distracted youth, that Eleanor’s loneliness begins to carve out dangerous, if fascinating, new paths.

The film’s central conceit emerges almost casually, in a moment that could be read as either comic or tragic depending on one’s perspective. Pushed by Lisa to attend activities at a Jewish Community Center, Eleanor mistakenly wanders into a support group for Holocaust survivors. Rather than excuse herself, she begins to tell Bessie’s stories as though they were her own. What begins as a small deception meant to avoid embarrassment quickly snowballs into a fully assumed identity, and Eleanor soon finds herself the unlikely focus of a young journalism student named Nina (Erin Kellyman). Nina, grieving the recent death of her Jewish mother and disconnected from her emotionally distant father (Chiwetel Ejiofor), sees in Eleanor a figure of inspiration and resilience. Their bond grows, framed in montages of intergenerational friendship—trips to museums, pizza dinners, manicures—but the shadow of Eleanor’s lie always lingers, promising inevitable collapse.

What is striking about Scarlett Johansson’s film is the way it invites us to empathize with Eleanor without condoning her choices. June Squibb plays the role not as a saintly grandmother or a caricature of elderly mischief but as a woman both lovable and infuriating, capable of devastating humor one moment and profound selfishness the next. An early sequence where she humiliates a supermarket clerk over the “wrong” pickles is both hilarious and unsettling; it establishes her as a steamroller personality, someone who thrives on control, but it also foreshadows the harm she can cause when she misapplies that stubborn energy. In this sense, Scarlett Johansson’s casting of Squibb is almost a masterstroke—the audience forgives Eleanor far more than they might forgive another performer, precisely because Squibb infuses her flaws with such humanity.

Yet this forgiveness is where the film becomes most complicated. To tell Holocaust stories without having lived them is no small trespass, and Tory Kamen’s screenplay never fully untangles the ethical knot of Eleanor’s actions. Instead, it circles around questions of ownership of memory: is Eleanor truly stealing Bessie’s experience, or is she preserving it in the only way she knows how, by embodying it? This paradox makes the film both uncomfortable and oddly compelling. In today’s world—where debates over truth, appropriation, and historical memory are more charged than ever—Eleanor the Great cannot help but feel political, even if it tries to remain timeless. That Scarlett Johansson casts actual Holocaust survivors in the group scenes only heightens this tension, grounding the film in authenticity while simultaneously risking charges of exploitation.

Technically, Scarlett Johansson’s direction is restrained, almost deferential. Unlike other actor-turned-directors who indulge in stylistic flourishes, she takes a page from the Ron Howard school of invisibility, framing the narrative as a showcase for performances rather than for her own auteurist stamp. This humility works in her favor; she allows her actors to dominate the screen. Erin Kellyman shines as Nina, radiating both vulnerability and curiosity, while Chiwetel Ejiofor brings quiet depth to a father paralyzed by his own grief. Still, Scarlett Johansson’s caution is also a limitation: the film often feels visually flat, its television-like aesthetic undercutting the weight of its themes. At times, one wishes for bolder choices that could have matched the audacity of the premise.

And yet, despite these flaws, the film moves. It moves because grief is universal, because friendships across generations always carry a spark of the extraordinary, and because June Squibb is, quite simply, a marvel. The scenes between Squibb and Kellyman are especially tender, revealing not just a grandmotherly mentorship but a genuine exchange of affection that transcends age. Their laughter over pizza, their candid talks about sex and faith, their mutual search for belonging—these are the moments where the film feels alive. That they are built on a lie makes them all the more bittersweet, reminding us how fragile the bonds of trust can be, and how desperately we all long for connection.

By the time the film reaches its climax—Eleanor’s deception teetering on the edge of exposure, Nina and Roger circling closer to the truth—it is clear that Eleanor the Great is less about the mechanics of the lie than about the emotional need that birthed it. Scarlett Johansson doesn’t deliver a sweeping moral condemnation, nor does she absolve her protagonist. Instead, she leaves us in the uneasy space between empathy and judgment, a place where cinema often feels most alive. It is a debut filled with tonal imbalance, yes, but also with heart, humor, and the kind of risks that reveal a filmmaker willing to confront discomfort rather than sidestep it.

Eleanor the Great is a film defined by its contradictions. It is sentimental yet audacious, predictable yet unsettling, tender yet troubling. It may not be a masterpiece, and it may falter under the weight of its premise, but it gives us June Squibb at the height of her late-career powers and Scarlett Johansson stepping with surprising humility into the role of director. For all its unevenness, it lingers—because it asks us who owns grief, who gets to tell the stories of the past, and what it means to search for companionship in the twilight of life. And if its answers are messy, perhaps that is the point: grief, like cinema, is rarely tidy.

Eleanor the great
Directed by Scarlett Johansson
Written by Tory Kamen
Produced by Scarlett Johansson, Jessamine Burgum, Charlotte Dauphin, Kara Durrett, Keenan Flynn, Jonathan Lia, Celine Rattray, Trudie Styler
Starring  June Squibb, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jessica Hecht, Erin Kellyman
Cinematography : Hélène Louvart
Edited by Harry Jierjian
Music by Dustin O'Halloran
Production companies : Maven Screen Media, Dauphin Studio, These Pictures, Pinky Promise, Wayfarer Studios, Content Engineers, MacPac
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics (United States and Canada), TriStar Pictures (International)
Release dates : May 20, 2025 (Cannes), September 26, 2025 (United States), November 19, 2025 (France)
Running time : 98 minutes

Seen September 7 2025 at the Deauville International Center

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