‘Eleanor The Great’ review: June Squibb headlines Scarlett Johansson’s warm debut

Dir: Scarlett Johansson. US. 2025. 98mins

Consolidating her headliner status at the age of 94, June Squibb looks, as a character in Eleanor The Great disparagingly says, like ‘she’s gonna live forever’. Following her comeback in Nebraska and her surprise indie hit, the acerbicly-funny Thelma, Squibb tackles another obstinate elderly title character for first-time director Scarlett Johansson in the heartfelt Eleanor The Great. Not the only recent film to tackle the nature of grief (The Thing With Feathers, Good Grief et al), the New York-set feature wraps the Holocaust and Jewish identity into a broad-stroke, sentimental story of truth and reconciliation. Filming with good-intent over narrative rigor, Johansson elicits strong performances from her actors – although they can be indulged at a cost.

Johansson elicits strong performances from her actors

Shooting in tight close-up on a team which also includes Chiwetel Ejiofor and a lovely turn from young British actor Erin Kellyman, Johansson leads her film through multiple tonal changes with confidence, tackling ambitious themes. Streamers should come calling for this film about a lonely old misanthrope whose lies and manipulation scale up to the point of claiming she is a Polish Holocaust survivor, when she is actually a Bronx housewife who converted to Judaism to marry her late husband.

Tory Kamen’s debut fiction screenplay is a ficticious take on stories such as that featured in Marco, 2024’s compelling deep-dive into Holocaust deception from Spain. Its inclusion in Cannes’ arty Un Certain Regard sidebar prior to a Sony Pictures Classics rollout may be a little misleading in that it’s of broad appeal. It’s always clear that we’re here to witness the curmudgeonly, rude Eleanor (Squibb) realise the error of her lying ways and her motivations are obvious, even if they’re related through awkward flashback cuts. It’s a questioning but comfortable watch.

The story begins with Eleanor and her best friend Bessie (Rita Zohar) – the real Polish Holocaust survivor – in companionable old age, BFs for literally F, sharing a home in Florida. The film then hops, skips and jumps through Eleanor’s tendency to lie and her curmudgeonly ways (which could be read as plain nasty) to Bessie’s death and Eleanor’s return to New York to be the unwelcome guest in her divorced and much-criticised daughter’s (Jessica Hecht) tiny apartment.

The film grows more ambitious when Eleanor attends the Jewish Community Centre and inadvertently drops in on the Holocaust Survivor’s Group. There she meets 19 year-old Nina (Kellyman), a young writer grieving the sudden loss of her mother and any relationship with her outrageously brusque anchorman father (Ejiofor). Soon, Nina and Eleanor are taking day trips to Staten Island and buying matching outfits for Eleanor’s delayed batmitzvah in front of a kindly new rabbi. Lies, of course, will come back to haunt Eleanor, even as the plot takes a late detour towards Ejiofor’s under-developed character, giving him an unearned, schmaltzy monologue, while zipping up some plot inconveniences along the way.

The bets are on that audiences will be so dazzled by Squibb and the emotion of the piece — which can genuinely soar - that they won’t sweat the small plot stuff. And indeed, that’s the case for the most part. At its weakest, there’s a suspicion that Eleanor The Great is leaning into the Holocaust for otherwise unearned emotion, but the piece is clearly genuine, and the cast so strong, it doesn’t linger. It’s nice to see New York’s Jewish community featured in such a warm piece, and the fact that Eleanor is not native to it is written in a welcoming way.

Eleanor The Great is a direct film, visually and thematically. Of note is Dustin O’Halloran’s subtle piano score, which avoids inserting itself between the viewer and the screen and is discreetly effective throughout. Squibb, of course, is majestic, and a generous partner to the young Kellyman in their shared scenes. Whether she’s done up in rollers, or bouncing a bouffant coif, Squibb does feel like she’s going to be here forever, as her character says, fighting the fight for representation and admiration of an older generation, onscreen and off.