Six years after starring in “Jojo Rabbit,” Scarlett Johansson has made another feel-good movie involving the Holocaust. But this time around, she’s behind the camera.
The actress’s debut as a scripted feature film director, “Eleanor the Great,” follows 94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein (June Squibb), who one day accidentally stumbles into a Holocaust survivors group at a Manhattan Jewish community center. Rather than explain her mistake, or clarify that she was actually raised in Iowa, Eleanor decides to go along with the assumption and recounts how she survived the genocide. Only it isn’t her own life story, of course, but that of her longtime best friend and roommate, Bessie (Rita Zohar), who recently died, prompting Eleanor to move in with her daughter in New York.
“Eleanor,” which opens in theaters nationwide on Friday, exudes kindness and empathy toward its protagonist as she grieves Bessie and tries to find community in a new city — albeit in a twisted way. As did “Jojo,” the new film, which is based on a debut screenplay by Tory Kamen, walks a fine line of acknowledging the horrors of the Holocaust while using the harrowing event for its own narrative purposes. But unlike Taika Waititi’s satirical comedy, which warns against systemic brainwashing by boldly centering on a German child whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler, “Eleanor” uses Bessie’s trauma as a vehicle for a much smaller, more restrained story of loss and loneliness. Somehow, this turns out to be just as risky a storytelling choice.
Eleanor’s lie threatens to unravel when 19-year-old journalism student Nina (Erin Kellyman, who played Enfys Nest in “Solo: A Star Wars Story”), asks Eleanor after observing the survivors group if she can profile her for a college class. Nina is comforted by Eleanor’s intimate understanding of death, as the younger woman lost her mother just months before this encounter. They strike up an unlikely friendship, to the extent that Eleanor even meets Nina’s father, Roger (Chiwetel Ejiofor), whose job as a truth-seeking local news anchor introduces another obvious obstacle.
Squibb is excellent as Eleanor, fresh off a star turn in last year’s delightful action flick “Thelma.” The film allows her a complexity rarely afforded to elderly characters. She radiates warmth in scenes with Kellyman, serving as a wise and witty grandmotherly figure, and exhibits sharp comedic timing when playing opposite Jessica Hecht, who charms as Eleanor’s middle-aged daughter, Lisa. These two nag each other endlessly: Eleanor worries Lisa won’t move on after getting divorced, while Lisa hopes her mother will move into an assisted-living facility. Their conversations could feel heavier in another film, weighed down by implications of mortality, but they are delivered in “Eleanor” as playful banter, underscoring familiarity between the two women.
Johansson capitalizes on her cast’s innate chemistry. An accomplished performer herself, she is unsurprisingly an actor’s director.
She guides the story with tenderness — perhaps to a fault, because even the most capable directing of a talented cast can’t save this movie from its central premise. Johansson’s accomplishments in shaping performance are eventually undermined by a melodramatic climax and predictably gentle resolution, which — paired with the film’s unremarkable visual style — reduces “Eleanor” to feeling smaller and flatter than desired. By the time Ejiofor’s Roger delivers a misty-eyed monologue, the audience already knows what he will say.
Johansson seems to have honorable intentions and makes a compelling case that Eleanor has borrowed Bessie’s story mainly as a means of keeping her friend’s memory alive. But asking other characters and the audience to so quickly absolve Eleanor of guilt minimizes the gravity of what Bessie experienced.
This isn’t just a little white lie; it’s a major red flag. “Eleanor” would have done well to sit with that a bit longer before its makers moved on.
PG-13. At area theaters. Thematic elements, some language and suggestive references. 98 minutes.
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