You likely know Scarlett Johansson best as Natasha Romanoff aka The Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic universe (MCU). But Romanoff has been killed off with a heroic death, and even with all of this multiverse stuff going on in the MCU, she has made it pretty clear that she doesn’t see the character returning. Her resume has taken a bit of a turn, and it looks like she’s out there trying to reinvent herself a bit. Her most recent role was on the latest Jurassic World film, and I would argue her character wasn’t very far from the one she’s left behind, but it’s a start, I assume. Where the actress has really reinvented herself is as a first-time director with Eleanor the Great. She’s starting small. No huge budgets and mega-CGI stuff going on here. She’s keeping it simple and as far away from the image as possible. But that might be your surface reaction. The truth is that Eleanor the Great is far from a simple turn for a new director. The film leans heavily on characterization and narrative here. In many ways it’s a much harder task than doing a mindless action or f/x film. There’s not much of a safety net here, and the film has the potential of exposing those rookie mistakes. It was actually a pretty bold choice, and it ends up working out quite well.
Enter the titular Eleanor Morganstein, played by June Squibb. She’s a 90+ year old woman living with her old friend Bessie (Zohar). They have a routine, and it’s been pretty much a cookie-cutter life for the two elder women. With a relationship like this, it’s inevitable that one of them was going to disappear from the routine, and it’s Bessie, who was a Holocaust survivor, who ends up passing away. Eleanor is now lost at sea. Her daughter Lisa (Hecht) and her family decide to take her in until they can figure out something more permanent, and that means moving her to the big city of New York. They encourage her to take advantage of the wide culture and make some friends. She’s reluctant, but ends up at a local community college where her daughter signed her up for a class. She accidentally walks in on a group in some kind of a session. They are Holocaust survivors, and this is their support group. They assume that’s why she’s there, and they welcome her with such energy that she’s kind of liking the support. But Eleanor is not a Holocaust survivor, and when she’s called upon to share her experience with the group, she channels her friend Bessie and the many horrific stories she’s heard for 12 years and begins to tell them as her own.
Before very long Eleanor has fallen deep into her deception. She has attracted the attention of a journalism student who decides to make Eleanor her school project. Nina (Kellyman) is also the daughter of established television journalist Roger, played by Chiwetel Ejiofer. It turns out Bessie and Eleanor were big fans of the guy. According to her stories, Eleanor was never bat mitzva’d, and so a local synagogue offers to prepare her and carry out the big ceremony. Before long her little lie has become a national sensation. Of course, we know that the truth has to catch up with her, particularly as we watch the story grow. Her family finds out, and it’s all going to lead to a very embarrassing moment for everyone.
It all looks incredibly simple on the surface. So much of the film’s ability to work depends on the performances found in the narrative, and the biggest burden is going to fall on June Squibb. If she can’t sell each and every nuance of her journey, the film quickly and irreversibly falls apart. She’s obviously not even a totally sympathetic character. Her little fib has the potential to hurt those around her quite seriously, and she can actually be somewhat abusive when she doesn’t get her way. She takes great pleasure in dropping biting remarks to sting others, but that’s all part of the complicated performance we get here. Somehow she charms us just as she does the others in the film, and trust me when I tell you that’s no simple accomplishment.
I have to say I didn’t have much of a memory of what she had done before. There were mostly a lot of television appearances going back to the 1990’s. She did feature in a few prominent films like About Schmidt and Scent Of A Woman . And even with an Oscar nomination for Nebraska, there was nothing that stood out for me. There is now. Squibb is actually 96, which is two years older than Eleanor in the film, and she delivers as much energy and passion as any of her younger co-stars. There wasn’t a history of anything that would suggest she could carry off the role. Scarlett has obviously already discovered that casting is a huge percentage of getting it right. Squibb carries the film with that subtle ability to convey many complex emotions at a time. She feels shame for what she’s doing, and it shows just enough to allow us to also see how the support is giving her exactly what she needs and has been looking for since her friend died. A lot of it is in the eyes. I love actors who know how to use their eyes. Carroll O’Connor was one of the best. Go stream an episode of All In The Family and just watch his eyes. You’ll discover immediately what I’m talking about.
With a performance like that the film is instantly compelling, and it could not have come at a better time, when anti-Jewish rhetoric is all around us and politicians throw around words like “Nazi”, “Hitler”, and “concentration camps” as if the reality of those things actually comes close to describing people and things you don’t agree with. This is the kind of film that brings out the impact and reality of the Holocaust without ever showing us images of emaciated prisoners and piles of dead bodies being fed into an incinerator. It would have been easy for Johannson to do that. Directors with this kind of imagery in their subject too often fall into that trap. She trusts that the performances are strong enough to convey those horrors and gives her audience credit for being able to figure it out for themselves.
It’s funny. When I first received my screening invite for Eleanor the Great, I actually thought the film might have been about Eleanor Roosevelt. Eventually I discovered I was mistaken. I’m glad I took the time to catch this one. It’s a brilliant first turn at the big chair for Johansson, and it’s a film that I think will touch a lot of people if they take the time to check it out. In three words, “It’s thoughtful. It’s personal. It’s moving.”
