Eleanor the Great (2025) Sony Pictures Classics/Comedy-Drama RT: 98 minutes Rated PG-13 (thematic elements, some language and suggestive references) Director: Scarlett Johansson Screenplay: Tory Kamen Music: Dustin O’Halloran Cinematography: Helene Louvart Release date: September 26, 2025 (US) Cast: June Squibb, Erin Kellyman, Jessica Hecht, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rita Zohar, Will Price, Lauren Klein, Stephen Singer, Beth Goodrich, Elaine Bromka, Ray Anthony Thomas, Cole Tristan Murphy, Cole Ragsdale, Stephen Bradbury, TJ Lee, Barbara Andres, Sami Steigmann, Mila Falkof.
Rating: ***
I don’t know about great. Good perhaps, but not great.
The comedy-drama Eleanor the Great marks the directorial debut of Scarlett Johansson, an actress I’ve been following since her first big role in the 1996 indie Manny & Lo. Like Jodie Foster before her, she always had this sense of maturity about her. It allowed her to make the jump into adult roles more easily than the average child actress. I figured it was only a matter of time before she tried her luck on the other side of the camera. The result, it’s a good albeit imperfect first effort.
June Squibb, a remarkable actress in her own right, plays the title role, a feisty nonagenarian with a tongue as sharp as her mind. After losing her longtime best friend and roommate Bessie (Israeli actress Zohar), she moves back to New York to live with her daughter Lisa (Hecht, The Sinner) and grandson Max (Price, Goosebumps). They don’t have a lot of time for her, so Lisa signs her up for a class at the local community center as a way of keeping her out of trouble while she’s at work. It doesn’t quite work out that way.
Eleanor finds herself at a support group meeting for Holocaust survivors. She wasn’t anywhere near the Holocaust. She doesn’t belong at this meeting. She gets up to leave, but decides instead to stick around and pose as a survivor. She passes off the late Bessie’s experiences in the Holocaust as her own. It snowballs from there.
Eleanor’s story catches the attention of Nina (Kellyman, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), a college student doing a project for her journalism class. She too is dealing with grief. She recently lost her mother and is having hard time connecting with her distant father, prominent new anchorman Roger (Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave). Nina wants Eleanor to be the focus of her project. The older woman initially declines her proposal, but changes her mind. The two women form a close bond which would be nice if it wasn’t built on a lie.
Eleanor the Great works best when it focuses on Eleanor and Nina. They’re both lonely, emotionally isolated by loved ones who don’t understand their grief. Eleanor keeps her new life secret from her family; they have no idea what she does all day while they’re out living their daily lives. Nina tries to talk to her dad, but he consistently shuts down, only showing interest when it comes to her journalism class and later, the whole Eleanor thing. In each other, they find the human connection that’s absent from their lives. It’s a nice story.
Unfortunately, the film falters when it comes to Eleanor’s deception. It doesn’t deal with it like it should. Specifically, it doesn’t explore the ethics of passing oneself off as a surviving victim of a horrific event that killed millions. Eleanor never really expresses any guilt until [NOT A SPOLIER!] her deception is uncovered. Even then, the film attempts to excuse her actions as a result of grief. It’s too pat an explanation. I’m not saying Johansson should have gone all heavy with her film; I’m just saying she should have explored the murky waters of the situation with more depth.
Tonally, Eleanor the Great is somewhat uneven. It’s hard to reconcile Eleanor the feisty old lady with Eleanor the liar. Early on, she gets off some good lines like when she dresses down a lazy teen supermarket employee. She doesn’t let family members off any easier. She has a way of getting under her daughter’s skin. You want to love this woman. Then she goes and does something fairly reprehensible. Suddenly, she’s not so funny or sympathetic.
In the role, Squibb does amazing work. She’s a great actress. Look at her work in Nebraska (2013) or last year’s Thelma. It’s really something when you realize she didn’t start acting until she was in her 60s (her film debut was the 1990 Woody Allen film Alice). She does wonders with the tricky character that is Eleanor. Kellyman is equally great as Nina, a young woman navigating the waters of grief alone until she finds an unlikely kindred spirit. Ejiofor has some good scenes as the emotionally unavailable parent who can’t see past his own silent suffering.
Eleanor the Great is a pretty good movie. I do believe Johansson has a future as a filmmaker with this promising first effort. She has a few rough edges to smooth out, but she’ll get better with more experience. I’m anxious to see what she does next.
