Sarah reviewed for the Sunday Star Times until 2019. After a career change to secondary school teaching, she now she works in alternative education with our most disadvantaged rangatahi.
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Cheeky old bird: June Squibb as Eleanor. Photo / Supplied
Cheeky old bird: June Squibb as Eleanor. Photo / Supplied
Eleanor the Great, directed by Scarlett Johansson, is in cinemas now.
Scarlett Johansson makes her directorial debut with this light-hearted take on some of life’s tougher aspects: growing old, loneliness and sharing sad stories of the past.
When her best friend and roommate dies, elderly Eleanor (June Squibb) movesfrom Florida to New York, where she was born, to be closer to family. Encouraged to get out and make new friends, she gravitates to the local Jewish community centre. But when Eleanor stumbles into a support group for Holocaust survivors, she gets herself tied up in a tale that takes on a life of its own – and as her story’s momentum grows, so do her troubles.
Now 95, Squibb was Oscar-nominated at 84 for Nebraska and won more acclaim in last year’s Thelma about a rest-home resident chasing down scammers.
Here, Eleanor feels a lot like Thelma’s sassier sister – a cheeky old bird who has no compunction about lecturing incompetent young people and isn’t fazed by being caught out in a fib. As she strikes up an unexpected friendship with young journalism student Nina, (Erin Kellyman), Eleanor gets caught in a pickle of her own jarring.
Johansson, herself a star of Taika Waititi’s Holocaust black comedy Jo-Jo Rabbit, directs a well-paced story but one with a premise that can’t help but feel a bit awkward. Of all the things to pretend, being a concentration camp survivor is a touchy one.
Squibb plays Eleanor just sweetly enough for us to sympathise with her predicament, but it’s hard to relax into the topic. Eleanor also feels mannered and rather too similar to last year’s plucky protagonist. Nonetheless, those hoping for a Thelma Part 2 may be enchanted.
