Eleanor The Great: Movie Review

Cast: June Squibb, Erin Kellyman, Jessica Hecht, Chiwetel Eijofor, Rita Zohar

Director: Scarlett Johansson

A curious tale of remembrance, Eleanor The Great settles early on into its patterns of garnering laughs from June Squibb's forthright delivery of her plain-speaking Eleanor Morgenstein, a 94-year-old woman forced to move back home with her daughter.

Eleanor has been friends with Bessie Stern (a subtle Zohar, who imbues her emotionally heavy scenes with earnestness) and they've lived in a Florida apartment together for decades.

But when Bessie dies (a wonderfully poignant shot shows Eleanor sat alone on a bench where just moments before she'd been doing exercise with Bessie), Eleanor decides to head to New York to live with her daughter Lisa (Hecht) and her grandson.

However, lost without companionship, one day, Eleanor accidentally finds herself taking part in a Holocaust Survivors meeting at the Jewish Community Centre. There, she tells a story of how she and her brother tried to escape the Nazis, catching the eye of young journalist student Nina (an understated Kellyman).

The only problem is that the story she spins isn't hers to tell.

There's supposed to be a moral in Eleanor The Great, one that espouses what cost a lie if the intention is benign and the reasoning true. But most of the film feels like it flips from a drama about laughing at "things old people say" before it flips into a more earnest tale of one story and memory being preserved.

Some of the issue is that the narrative is prepared to jump over some of the more gaping holes in logic but the audience is perhaps less forgiving. Weirdly, there never really feels like a weight of consequence in the actions either, with moments that should blend easily into drama wilting aimlessly away despite a long lead-up to what's to happen.

Not all of this is Johansson's fault, and while her work behind the camera for the first time is fairly formulaic, there are flourishes (as mentioned above) where the visuals elevate the predctable.

Ultimately, Eleanor The Great feels more like a mixed outing that had potential - and while its intended audiences may be older and its approach softer, even with Squibb's likeable performance (that echoes much of the charm she manifested in Thelma), there's a distinct feeling that it, frustratingly, could have been much, much more.