52 Films by Women Vol 9. 38. Eleanor The Great (Director: Scarlett Johansson)

 

Pictured: Nonagenarians Bessie (Rita Zohar, left) and Eleanor (June Squibb, right) have breakfast in a scene from the American comedy-drama, 'Eleanor The Great', written by Tory Kamen and directed by Scarlett Johansson. Still courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Cultural appropriation – to tell a story that does not belong to you – has existed since the birth of literature. Both the Old and New Testament were transcribed from other people’s histories. Man has, apparently, related the word of a creator, an act – or series of acts – that could represent the largest hubris of all. Nowadays, individuals have the means to tell their own stories, from the ‘tell-all’ autobiography to the curation of a digital archive shared online. However, they are not always the best narrators of their own stories, lacking vocabulary, insight, even time, as well as being prone to self-censorship. An intermediary is helpful, be it a ghost writer, a playwright or an actor, someone sensitive to the meaning of the text and able to convey it to others.

It is natural for an actor, in this case Scarlett Johansson, to gravitate towards this subject. She does so in her directorial debut, Eleanor The Great, a film about an elderly woman, Eleanor Morgenstein (June Squibb) who relates someone else’s experiences as her own. Johansson has played a Russian - the Marvel superhero, Black Widow - and occupied a role defined as Asian in the live-action remake of Ghost in the Shell. She has had to justify her choices, to demonstrate that she has the necessary attributes to be an action star. Her casting allows for the character to transcend their cultural specificity, to fit in with the group. You are always aware that Johansson is fighting to prove herself. Indeed, we enjoy the spectacle of her doing so.

However, cultural appropriation is problematic when interpreters displace available storytellers whose life experiences are more closely aligned with the stories that are being told. An example is relating Black experience in the USA. The Canadian director, Norman Jewison, attracted criticism from Spike Lee for wanting to make a film about the life of Malcolm X; Jewison later withdrew from the project. Such appropriation leads to concern that stories are distorted and made more palatable to an audience from a different culture. Put crudely, white directors could tell stories that feature Black characters in order to disempower them. The essential rule of cultural appropriation is that you should like and respect the protagonists whose story you are telling; to give them their dignity, to honour their choices. Jewison ultimately found Malcolm X to be a problematic individual. He could not, in good conscience, honour Malcolm’s choices. But what of Eleanor? Is her telling of her best friend’s story in any way honourable?

Working from a screenplay by Tory Kamen, Johansson introduces 94-year-old widower Eleanor in an unusual way. She shares a bedroom with her best friend, Bessie (Rita Zohar). Quite why they do so is unclear, but the image of two elderly women sleeping in single beds and sharing one alarm clock emphasises their inseparability: it’s visual shorthand. We see them out shopping in their Florida neighbourhood. Bessie is looking for her favourite pickle, which isn’t on the shelf. She is rebuffed by a young shelf filler. Eleanor takes over, leaning in and reading his name tag. ‘Nice name,’ she remarks. She asks him how long he has been working at the store. ‘A couple of weeks,’ he replies. She tells him that today is delivery day, so if he goes to the stockroom – indicating it with her finger – he can locate and bring her friend her pickles. The shelf filler shuffles off. The gentle humour in Squibb’s delivery lifts the scene. She’s condescending but not haughty. We are on her side because we know that if Eleanor were seventy-three years younger the shelf filler would want to impress her. As he departs, Eleanor’s face creases into a giggle. The scene demonstrates that Eleanor is far better as Bessie’s voice than Bessie is. Our acceptance of this allows us to retain sympathy for Eleanor when she appropriates Bessie’s story.

Bessie’s passing is conveyed through a few short scenes. In one shot we see Bessie and Eleanor share a bench. A few scenes later, Eleanor sits alone. Eleanor’s adult daughter, Lisa (Jessica Hecht) invites her to stay with her in New York, where she lives with her son, Max (Will Price). Eleanor adores Max but judges Lisa harshly. In order to give her mother something to do during the day, Lisa signs her up for classes at the local Jewish Cultural Centre. Eleanor peers through a door and watches a singer perform Stephen Sondheim’s ‘I’m Still Here’ to an audience of respectful older people in what otherwise seems like a breach of tact; the song title is far too on-the-nose for anyone’s comfort. Eleanor’s hesitancy allows for her to be scooped up by a guiding hand and deposited in a Holocaust Survivors’ support group where she is welcomed. It isn’t long before they ask about her story. There is an observer, journalism student Nina Davis (Erin Kellyman), who by coincidence is the daughter of New York news presenter, Roger Davis (Chiwetel Ejiofor), whom Eleanor adores. She and Bessie watched his programme, even though I would have expected them to tune into a Florida news show and not New York One.

Johansson and Kamen demonstrate great sensitivity in not showing Eleanor tell Bessie’s story. Instead, late in the drama, the film has a flashback to Bessie confiding in Eleanor. Bessie – Elizabeth Stern – lived in Poland with her family. She and her brother ended up on a train taking them to an internment camp.  Bessie’s brother leapt from the train. Bessie jumped after him. The two fled. Shots rang out. Bessie hid in the forest and waited. She headed back towards the railway line and found her brother’s dead body, pierced by fourteen bullets. ‘You counted?’ asks Eleanor. ‘I had to,’ Bessie replies. Bessie continued through the woods until she was sheltered. Although Bessie’s life in hiding is the most interesting part of her story, we don’t hear about that.

Nina becomes enamoured with Eleanor. The older woman would become a great subject for her journalism project. The film moves into its second form of cultural appropriation, to express empathy across cultures. However, it does so through a different lens, grief. Nina has recently lost her mother. Her father won’t talk about her, instead devoting himself to his work. Nina’s response is to abandon poetry and take a journalism course so that she and her father have something to talk about. Visiting Roger’s ‘fancy’ apartment, Eleanor finds a volume of Nina’s poetry and asks to borrow it. Later, she tells her that she admires her writing. For Nina, Eleanor fills some of the gap left by the passing of her mother. In one scene, after Eleanor decides to have her own bats mitzvah – she converted to Judaism in 1953 after marriage – the two women go clothes shopping together and wear identical red suits. For her part, Nina blindfolds Eleanor and takes her to Coney Island.

Pictured: Surprise. Eleanor (June Squibb, left) re-discovers Coney Island having been taken there by Nina (Erin Kellyman, right) in a scene from the comedy drama, 'Eleanor The Great', written by Tory Kamen and directed by Scarlett Johansson. Still courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Kamen escalates the stakes. Eleanor agrees to speak to Nina’s class and discovers that the session is being recorded. ‘I don’t like surprises,’ she tells her. Nevertheless, she relays the story ‘for the record’ as planned. Then Roger reads his daughter’s work and praises it, deciding that it would be a great feature for his show. Meanwhile, Eleanor has no intention of telling Lisa about her upcoming bats mitzvah. On the day, she reluctantly splits an Uber with Max – Squibb extracts some comedy over her disdain for the word, ‘Uber’ – and then jumps out in traffic and takes a cab.

The story can only end one way, but the blow is softened by contextualisation. In the end, Eleanor returns to the group and apologises. However, the group is sensitive enough to recognise that the story itself is larger than the teller.

There is a good scene in the middle of the film when Eleanor speaks to Rabbi Cohen (Stephen Singer) who asks her to select a passage from the Torah. Eleanor picks one in which a man pretends to be his brother in order to receive a blessing when it would otherwise be withheld. ‘So it is okay in some circumstances to lie?’ asks Eleanor, welcoming justification for her behaviour. The Rabbi is equivocal. Intention is important. Eleanor’s behaviour is borne of social awkwardness and is never self-serving; the pickle scene demonstrates this. She remains modest. She also lives for her enthusiasms and tries to apologise – if I’m not mistaken, she leaves fourteen messages for Nina, matching the number of bullets that killed Bessie’s brother, perhaps a number that shouldn’t have been repeated.  More importantly, the film, in its modest way, underlines the importance of stories, to heal wounds, to give people perspective and a greater understanding of their condition and to draw strength. Johansson serves the screenplay and the actors. She is equally modest.

Reviewed at UGC Cine Citie Les Halles (screen 31), Paris, France, Saturday 22 November 2025, 09:00 screening