Hear June Squibb tell someone else’s Holocaust tragedy.
June Squibb converted to Judaism in the 1950s, and Scarlett Johansson is Jewish, so it should be wise if Johansson directs Squbb in a story about a woman passing on her Holocaust survivor’s friend’s story as her own. “Eleanor the Great” is that movie, and Johannson also worked with the USC Shoah Foundation to ensure the authenticity of Holocaust survivors. Always better to be safe than sorry.
Squibb plays Eleanor, a Jewish old lady, who relocates from Florida to New York City to live with her workaholic daughter Lisa (Jessica Hecht) and teenage grandson Max (Will Price). This would be temporarily until she can get a new home, which would have to be a retirement home. You know some people and their elderly mothers.
Either place, she has her principles as a Jewish old woman. She needs kosher pickles, but has to tell a slacker teenager to look, and she wants to drink water with a straw in an environmentally friendly restaurant, and has the waitress find some in the back. And she refuses to move into a nursing home, much to the urging of her daughter. The original screenplay (written by Tony Kamen) was titled “Eleanor, Invisible,” which would have her navigating loss and transition in New York City. And maybe this film still does navigate those elements, but through the Jewish perspective.
The daughter signs her up for a Holocaust support group, where she meets the young NYU sophomore Nina (Erin Kellyman), who is writing an article on the survivors for her journalism class. Eleanor isn’t a Holocaust survivor, but her dead friend Bessie (Rita Zohar) was, and so she takes her story as her own. Nina wants Eleanor to tell “her story,” which means the lie will grow, and resort in the predictable rising action.
Her deceased mother is Jewish, but she doesn’t know much about her roots, and she’s receiving less connection from her anchorman father Roger (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who only warms up to her by her article on Eleanor’s story. Remember that’s actually Bessie’s story.
“Eleanor the Great” has the obligatory formulas regarding parents and children and how their ages function, which is why I can’t give Johannson’s directorial debut a 4-star rating. But what does work are the performances from Squibb, Kellyman, and especially Zohar. Granted, Johansson has directed the short film “These Vagabond Shoes,” and the concert film “American Express Unstaged: Ellie Goulding,” but this one feels more like her attempts to step up her game like Olivia Wilde or Greta Gerwig. And it’s a good start, given the topics she wants to explore.
Squibb is now 95-years-old, and it’s amazing she’s still acting. “Thelma” and her voice work of Nostalgia in “Inside Out 2,” both from last year, are other examples of how movies treat her nowadays. In “Eleanor the Great,” she embraces her converted roots and develops as an old woman trying to keep her dead friend’s spirits alive and tell her story. And each scene with Zohar telling that story is emotionally gripping, as a majority of us can’t acknowledge what her character went through. Most of us can’t acknowledge what the Holocaust was like for the Jewish victims. And like “Small Things Like These” or “Sorry, Baby,” we don’t need to see what happens. I know these three films are of different topics, but the adage still applies and they all involve women.
“Eleanor the Great” isn’t a great movie, but it does feature great performances and strong emotions. Ergo, it’s a good movie that respects old people and Holocaust survivors. Whatever comes first. But I’m neither Jewish nor a Holocaust victim, obviously. So, what the Hell do I know?
