Impersonally directed by one of the most famous people in the world, “Eleanor the Great” is the near-opposite of auteur fare. Filmmaker Scarlett Johansson wouldn’t have it any other way – channeling her fame and star power into an uneven if moving drama about historical transmission that stresses the importance of sharing other people’s stories. Coming from any other first-time director, this same film, scene for scene and shot for shot, wouldn’t exactly scream for such an auspicious global launch. But coming from Johansson, this Holocaust survivor tale just took a long bow in Cannes.
That survivor, mind you, is not the titular Eleanor (June Squibb) – and that’s the very point. In effect widowed for the second time over, the feisty 94-year-old shows no signs of slowing after the death of her life-long best friend Bessie (Rita Zohar), but her life suddenly loses all direction. The two shared a Florida condo for nearly two decades, entwining their shared widowhoods into a vivid companionship (of the platonic kind, as the chatterbox Eleanor has no problem relaying and then chasing her own desires); they were connected at the hip, so much that Polish-born Bessie’s childhood traumas weighed just as heavily on her roommate.
And when that roommate finds herself back in New York, cramped up with her daughter and grandson for lack of anywhere else to go, she carries those stories with her – finding them particularly useful at a survivor support group that doubles as a ready-made social circle. There she also meets Nina (Erin Kellyman), an NYU journalism student also beset by very recent grief, and looking for a juicy human interest feature. The two quickly hit off – if only to give Eleanor someone to invite over for shabbat.
Though her character often goes by bubbe, Squibb’s midwestern affect and demeanor don’t exactly scream Yiddishkeit – which is also very much the point in a film driven primarily by casting. Johansson cedes the stage to her nonagenarian star, making few distinctive formal choices other than to keep Squibb well-let and ready to let loose – and that she does, early and often, making minced-meat of those that cross her while turning on the charm for everyone else. Only this act of directorial generosity – one often seen in actor’s directorial debuts, it should be noted – also robs the wider film of a richer emotional palate.
Eleanor’s growing ruse does not spur any tonal shifts towards guilt or misgivings (sentiments that wouldn’t exactly be out of place in any dive into Jewish-American life), nor does the script delve too far into its own characters’ psychologies. Each and every thematic undercurrent gets spoken aloud, and then underlined by a twinkling and omnipresent piano score that leaves no emotional beat left for interpretation. This odd need to both show-and-tell finds a literal embodiment once the film introduces Nina’s papa Roger (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an NYC news-anchor whose finds his sole narrative purposes in a climactic TV-tapping that neatly summarizes and entwines the script’s various threads and then broadcasts them throughout the five boroughs.
But that broadcast is still affecting, all the same. If “Eleanor the Great” never quite braids its strands into a truly compelling yarn, there’s still pleasure in examining the individual threads. Squibb clearly relishes the chance to cut loose — especially when preparing for her late-in-life bat mitzvah, which delivers the film’s most unexpected visual. (Rapping grannies are passé. Let’s see one chant the ha’Torah.) And the very text of each Holocaust recollection — often delivered by real-life survivors — lands with renewed urgency. At 40, Johansson belongs to a generation still shaped by direct familial ties to survivors. Today, that already isn’t the case.
“Eleanor the Great” recognizes as much, ceding its own coda to a first-person account. Audiences in Cannes walked out knowing little more about Johansson’s directorial voice – but they also walked out in tears. The movie star wouldn’t have it any other way.
Sony Pictures Classics will release “Eleanor the Great” later this year.
