There\u2019s precisely one surprising moment in Scarlett Johansson\u2019s feature directorial debut \u201cEleanor the Great,\u201d written by Tory Kamen. It\u2019s the impetus for the entire drama that unfolds in this film, and it feels genuinely risky \u2014 a taboo that will be hard for this film to resolve. Yet, everything that unfolds around this moment is entirely predictable.<\/p>\n
Also unsurprising? That star June Squibb<\/a>\u2019s warm, humorous and slightly spiky performance elevates the wobbly material and tentative direction. If Johansson nails anything, it\u2019s in allowing the 95-year-old Squibb to shine in only her second starring role (the first being last year\u2019s action-comedy \u201cThelma\u201d<\/a>). For any flaws or faults of \u201cEleanor the Great\u201d \u2014 and there are some \u2014 Squibb still might make you cry, even if you don\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the good part about \u201cEleanor the Great,\u201d which is a bit thin and treacly, despite its high-wire premise. The record-scratch startle that jump-starts the dramatic arc occurs when Eleanor (Squibb) is trying to figure out what to do with herself at a Manhattan Jewish community center after recently relocating from Florida. Her lifelong best friend and later-in-life roommate Bessie (Rita Zohar) has recently died, so Eleanor has moved in with her daughter, Lisa (Jessica Hecht), in New York City.<\/p>\n Harried Lisa sends Eleanor off to the JCC for a choir class, but the impulsive and feisty nonagenarian pooh-poohs the Broadway singing and instead follows a friendly face into a support group \u2014 for Holocaust survivors, she\u2019s alarmed to discover. Yet put on the spot when they ask her to share her story of survival, Eleanor shares Bessie\u2019s personal history of escaping a Polish concentration camp instead, with horrific details she learned from her friend over sleepless nights of tortured memories.<\/p>\n Eleanor\u2019s lie could have been a small deception that played out over one afternoon, never to be spoken of again if she just ghosted the regular meeting, but there\u2019s a wrinkle: an NYU student, Nina (Erin Kellyman), who wants to profile Eleanor for her journalism class. Eleanor initially makes the right choice, declining to participate, before making the wrong one, calling Nina and inviting her over when her own grandson doesn\u2019t show up for Shabbat dinner. Thus begins a friendship built on a lie, and we know where this is going.<\/p>\n