Publication Date: 04-27-2026

Eleanor the Great (2025) review

Dir. Scarlett Johansson

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

Anyone who is worried they are behind the eight-ball in life or worry about realizing their goals should look no further than June Squibb for inspiration. The Broadway-turned-Hollywood actress landed her first leading role at 93-years-old in the utterly delightful action-comedy Thelma. Prior to that, she earned an Oscar nod for her poignant yet hilarious work in Alexander Payne’s Nebraska. Squibb is a ray of sunshine on the screen, so much so that it’s as there’s an iridescent glow following her throughout Eleanor the Great (now the second leading role in her career), despite her character committing an egregious lapse in judgment.

The directorial debut of actress Scarlett Johansson, the film follows Eleanor Morgenstein (Squibb), who we first meet in Florida, where she resides with her longtime best friend, Bessie (Rita Zohar). The two might as well be half of the Golden Girls as they do everything together, including giving a cocky young store clerk an ass-chewing in one of the film’s funniest scenes. When Bessie dies, Eleanor decides to move back to New York, where she’ll live with her adult daughter, Lisa (Jessica Hecht) and grandson Max (Will Price).

One day at the Jewish Community Center, where she tries to make friends, Eleanor inadvertently stumbles into a Holocaust survivors support group. Rather than see herself out, she starts recounting Bessie’s life story as her own, grabbing the ear of a young woman named Nina (Erin Kellyman). Nina is grieving the loss of her mother and deals with her absentee news anchor father (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in the process. Desiring to do a feature piece on Eleanor’s story, Nina becomes friends with the woman several decades her senior, all the while the nonagenarian finds herself digging a deeper hole of deception.

At the core of Johansson and writer Tory Kamen’s (in her debut) story is a truly difficult moral quandary with a well-meaning but sometimes ornery character. Eleanor is one of those very recognizable elderly people insofar that she has no filter. She’s her daughter’s toughest critic, and quick to embarrass her grandson. She’s also incredibly lonely, having been a widower for a number of years and now having just lost her closest friend. Being an aspiring journalist, Nina doesn’t let Eleanor off the hook easy when it comes to convenient platitudes or dismissive hand-waves when she’s faced with a tough question. Her big mouth coupled with her loneliness is also what gets her into this sticky situation in the first place.

Kamen plays the sympathy card here, and I’d argue her screenplay lets Eleanor off the hook a little too easily. Unclear is why Eleanor felt the need to lie in the first place (for the sake of a 90-minute movie, I know). Also murky is the idea we should forgive Eleanor for masquerading as a victim of one of the world’s most violent genocides by passing her late friend’s story of her own. Sure, she didn’t ask to be the muse for a young journalist, but she didn’t turn down the prospect either.

While it skirts some larger moral questions, Johansson’s debut remains charming, in particular for the tender moments between Squibb and Kellyman that show how grief is addressed between those who have weathered many losses versus a young woman who is dealing with arguably the biggest one she’ll ever face. Squibb’s talents should be known by now. On the other hand, Kellyman holds her own and gives Nina credible emotional depth and nuance. Eleanor the Great is very good, which in itself is a great start for Scarlett Johansson’s directorial career.

Starring: June Squibb, Erin Kellyman, Jessica Hecht, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Rita Zohar. Directed by: Scarlett Johansson.