Films for Breakfast

At 95 years old and still working steadily in Hollywood, June Squibb’s career is nothing short of remarkable. She’s been acting since the 1980s, but her breakout performance in Alexander Payne’s Nebraska (2013) seemed to spark a late-career renaissance, with memorable appearances in countless films since. With last year’s Thelma and now Eleanor the Great, her work has taken on a poignant throughline – films that wrestle with legacy, aging, and the determination to keep living fully, even in your twilight years.

Eleanor the Great follows Eleanor (Squibb) and her best friend Bessie (Eita Zohar), two widows who have long shared a home and life together. When Bessie dies, Eleanor relocates to New York to live with her daughter Lisa (Jessica Hecht) and grandson Max (Will Price). Lonely and searching for connection, she turns to a Jewish Community Center, where she accidentally stumbles into a Holocaust survivors’ support group. Panicked, she tells Bessie’s story as if it were her own – an ethically fraught lie that sets the stage for the film.

This premise could easily collapse under the weight of its sensitivity, but Squibb’s performance grounds it well. The film quickly introduces Nina (Erin Kellyman), a young journalist moved by Eleanor’s story. Still grieving her own mother, Nina becomes a mirror for Eleanor: their unlikely bond reflects both shared loss and the messy ways people cope with grief. Eleanor knows her lie is wrong, but in channeling Bessie’s history she also, paradoxically, finds a way to process her absence. Kellyman’s performance is tender and layered, providing both a foil to Eleanor’s deception and a vital source of humanity in the narrative.

Directed by Scarlett Johansson (yes, that Scarlett Johansson), the film carries the hallmarks of a first feature – earnestness, occasional rough edges, flashes of real promise. It handles tricky material with surprising delicacy, balancing humor, sincerity, and melancholy in equal measure. Yet, while the film is consistently engaging, it never quite rises above “good.” Eleanor the Great is heartfelt, thoughtful, and buoyed by Squibb’s remarkable turn, but it doesn’t fully transcend its modest ambitions.

Some of the more powerful moments come from scenes between Nina and her father Roger (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are also navigating the loss of Nina’s mother, each in their own way. Ejiofor, in particular, delivers what may be the film’s most powerful and emotional scene, grounding the story in raw vulnerability. By the end, Eleanor, Nina, and Roger together represent different stages and interpretations of grief – how those we love can feel so intertwined with our own identity that their stories become inseparable from ours.

All in all, Eleanor the Great is a modest, moving film – almost frustratingly decent. It’s well shot, though never visually striking; sincere and emotional, though rarely groundbreaking. It handles difficult subject matter with care, but without fully probing its more morally complex edges. It goes down easy, and I genuinely enjoyed watching it, but I couldn’t help wishing it had aimed a little higher. Still, with Squibb’s committed and endearing performance at its center, it’s an easy recommendation.