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When 94-year-old Eleanor\u2019s (June Squibb) best friend of 70 years and roommate Bessie (Rita Zohar) passes away, she decides it\u2019s time for a change, and moves back to her native New York. In an attempt to get her out of the house and socialising, her daughter Lisa encourages Eleanor to attend classes at their local Jewish Community Centre, where she accidentally sits in on a group for Holocaust survivors. When they ask her to share her story, Eleanor (who is not a Holocaust survivor) panics, and recounts Polish-born Bessie\u2019s story instead. She\u2019s approached by journalism student Nina (Erin Kelliman), who wants to profile her for a class project: chaos ensues.<\/p>\n
The problem with the premise of Scarlett Johansson\u2019s directorial debut, Eleanor the Great,\u00a0<\/em>is that the story can ultimately only end one way. From the second Eleanor tells her lie we know that she\u2019s going to get found out (because this is a gentle comedy drama) and so it\u2019s down to Tory Kamen\u2019s script to provide enough entertainment that the journey to this inevitable destination that it doesn\u2019t feel like a slog. Unfortunately the writing in\u00a0Eleanor the Great\u00a0<\/em>is less than stellar, with character painted in broad strokes (Eleanor\u2019s disinterested daughter and grandson; Nina\u2019s workaholic father) and precious little done to breathe new life into the fish-out-of-water narrative. The reliably charming June Squibb does her best, but Eleanor isn\u2019t a very interesting character, partially because we don\u2019t really learn much about her beyond her grief regarding her friend Bessie\u2019s death. Similarly, Kelliman does her best to inject personality into Nina, but there\u2019s very little to hold our interest, and Johansson doesn\u2019t prove herself a particularly talented director of performances. In fact, as the film goes on, it feels like Eleanor has less and less personality, hollowed out from the snarky, spiky old biddy we meet at the beginning of the film.<\/p>\n Similarly disappointing is the look and feel of\u00a0Eleanor the Great,\u00a0<\/em>which isn\u2019t for a lack of talent. Alice Rohrwacher and Claire Denis\u2019 regular DoP H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Louvart shot the film, but it has all the personality of a New York tourism board advert, and Dustin O\u2019Halloran\u2019s score is similarly devoid of personality. The images within the film are too general and familiar \u2013 there is nothing new about what Johansson is attempting in her directorial debut, which leads one to wonder why she bothered making it at all. It\u2019s not a disastrous film \u2013 in fact, it\u2019s quite inoffensive. But this glaring niceness reflects a crucial lack of ambition, and that seems more egregious than taking a big swing. In a Cannes year that also brought us directorial debuts from Kristen Stewart and Harris Dickinson, it\u2019s safe to say that Johansson, while the most experienced actor of the group, achieves the least with her leap to filmmaking.<\/p>\n To keep celebrating the craft of film, we have to rely on the support of our members. Join Club LWLies today and receive access to a host of benefits.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nGet more Little White Lies<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n