“Taking a trip, Eleanor?”
I don’t recall where I saw it, but I do remember reading that Scarlett Johansson was first inspired to direct after seeing Robert Redford direct her and Kristin Scott Thomas in 1998’s The Horse Whisperer, in which she starred. It’s incredibly touching that the actress’s directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, arrives nearly 30 years later, not too long following the legendary actor’s death. There’s something very symbolic and touching about this, as it serves as a passing of the torch in a sense, and a way of keeping Redford and his influence alive. Eleanor the Great isn’t anywhere on the same level as Redford’s memorable first time at bat, but it stands as a very promising start that he almost certainly would have been proud of.
When nonagenarian Eleanor (June Squibb) loses her longtime roommate and best friend Bessie (Rita Zohar), she decides to leave the California apartment they shared and move back to New York to live with her daughter Lisa (Jessica Hecht) and grandson Max (Will Price). After mistakenly wandering into a holocaust survivor’s group, she begins to share memories of her time during WW2. However, the memories are Bessie’s, not hers. Her stories get the attention of Nina (Erin Kellyman), a journalism student who wants to interview Eleanor. As the two begin to form a bond apart from her assignment, Eleanor’s influence helps Nina to deal with the effects of her mother’s death on her and her father, Roger (Chiwetel Ejiofor).
Things start on a pleasant, if not melancholic, note with Eleanor’s transition to life back in New York before the lie she tells takes place. Once it does, Eleanor the Great becomes a film about grief. The instances where we see Eleanor presenting Bessie’s experiences as her own are intercut with flashbacks of the latter telling them to the former. It soon becomes clear that the recounting of her best friend’s memories (more powerful and visceral to hear than many visual representations) is her way of trying to process the fact that she isn’t there anymore. In one flashback, Bessie talks about her brother’s fate during the holocaust and ends by saying that unless she talks about him, no one will ever have known he existed. That motivation is at the heart of Eleanor’s act, a need to protect her friend’s legacy so that they will know she was here and that she lived.
Eleanor the Great isn’t without its bumps as a film. Tory Kamen’s script goes into a few too many different directions for its own good at times before eventually finding just the right rhythm needed to tell this story. Still, this means that screen time gets awkwardly divided between Eleanor’s own journey, her friendship with Nina, and the relationship between Nina and Roger. That last subplot, with its two wounded characters, may be involving enough to deserve its own film, yet the lesson Eleanor teaches them only helps their characters blossom. Thankfully, the different threads find each other in time to understand the filmmakers’ inspiration behind the journey we’ve found ourselves invested in. It’s a journey comprised of true gentleness and a beauty that works due to its honesty and the great empathy it has for its characters.
With Eleanor the Great, Squibb gives the perfect follow-up performance to last year’s Thelma, giving further proof that roles for older actresses are still there, and that the work that’s accomplished can be beautiful. For a story with more than a few narrative threads, the seasoned actress delicately and expertly carries us through the entire film with ease, helping us to understand her character’s various choices. Likewise, the turns by Ejiofor, Kellyman, and especially Zohar help to greatly deepen the film in just the way it deserves.
I believe I mentioned in a past review the great writer Joan Didion and her comments about grief during the 2005 promotional tour for her landmark book, The Year of Magical Thinking. Didion claimed that we as Americans don’t really do grief well in this country, mostly because it’s been so commercialized, but also because we can’t ever fully understand it. I believe that Eleanor the Great is a testament to that notion. Through Eleanor, Johansson has crafted a character and a film that delves headfirst into one of the most complex emotions within humanity in an attempt to break it down on both an emotional and psychological level. Her film may not have unlocked the key to comprehending grief, but it has at least made it a little less scary.
