Eleanor The Great

Any fool can have a great career third act; June Squibb, at 96, is on at least her fifth and still accelerating. Last year she starred in the (age-appropriate) action hit Thelma; now she gets a satisfyingly complicated role as a mischievous but spiky pensioner in a smart comedy-drama of the type we’re often told doesn’t get made anymore.

Squibb’s Eleanor Morgenstein lives a contented life with her best friend of 70 years in Florida, but when tragedy strikes, she moves back in with her daughter (Jessica Hecht) in New York and often takes out her own unhappiness on her family. But when she wanders into the wrong group at the Jewish Community Centre and finds herself among Holocaust survivors, sharing stories, she adopts her late friend’s account in an impulsive moment of madness, or in a twisted tribute, or some strange mix of both. In doing so, she catches the attention of idealistic visiting journalism student Nina (Erin Kellyman), and they bond over a shared sense of loss and loneliness.

Scarlett Johansson's style is unshowy but effective.

It’s no spoiler to say that Eleanor first doubles down on her lie, nor that she’s setting up an inevitable disaster to come. Plot wise, there’s little here that’s surprising. But the details of Eleanor’s reactions, and Nina’s, are nicely developed and far less conventional, and there’s a breeziness to their cross-generational friendship that feels real.

Much of the chatter about this prior to release was centred on the fact that it’s Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, and she’s given herself a head start with a sharply written script by Tory Kamen. Beyond that, her style is unshowy but effective, and she draws beautifully judged performances from Squibb and the rest of the cast. More impressively, she manages to balance comedy and tragedy deftly, finding real emotional whammy in Eleanor’s story, and in the stories she tells.