SPOILER ALERT!
I took myself to the movies on Saturday, to my favorite local theater in my little town of Doylestown, PA, called The County. There I saw the Scarlett Johansson directorial debut Eleanor the Great which is an experience of love, loss and lies. June Squibb (who I was introduced to as Sheldon Cooper’s Meemaw in The Big Bang Theory) plays the titular character, nonagenarian Eleanor who had built a predictable life sharing a Florida apartment with her dearest friend Bessie (portrayed by Rita Zohar, who, for my money was the most heart-wrenching actor in the film), doing everything together, from shopping (and tormenting an inexperienced young supermarket clerk who dared to tell them that all pickles taste the same), to walking side by side, to exercising on the beach.
Both widowed, Bessie is a Holocaust survivor (as is Zohar) who reveals secrets about her life that she has never told another living soul. So bonded are they, that Eleanor absorbs the narrative and when Bessie dies peacefully, carries it in her heart and mind. Shortly after that devastating loss, she travels to NYC where she had lived in the past and where her daughter Lisa and young adult grandson Max share an apartment. Their interactions are peppered with snarky comments by Eleanor to the sometimes insecure Lisa (Jessica Hecht)
Her daughter plans to make the stay a short one and encourages Eleanor to apply to move to an assisted living where she can make friends and have a full life in the midst of the heart shaped hole left after the passing of her friend Bessie. Eleanor resists but is willing to visit the nearby Jewish Community Center to take a class. While standing in a hallway, she encounters Vera who assumes Eleanor is there for a support group so she invites her to sit in the circle with her and several other Holocaust survivors. When Eleanor discovers what the group is about, she attempts to back out of telling a personal story as they invite her to do, but eventually stays and begins to weave a tale that she professes to be about her but is really about Bessie’s life. Also in the room is Nina, an NYU journalism student (the determined, earnest and etheric Erin Kellyman) who is there to write about the survivors, but is particularly drawn to Eleanor. So compelling is ‘her’ story that Nina decides to interview her and turn her project in to her professor where it receives rave reviews. Nina is encouraged to take the project further.
The other thing that bonds the two is shared loss, although it doesn’t become apparent until later, that Nina has recently lost her mother and has not come to grips with it, nor has her father Roger, a newscaster who immerses himself in his work to avoid feeling. He is eloquently portrayed by Chiwetel Ejiofor (He recently played a pivotal role in another movie I reviewed called The Life of Chuck) who, as a widower is also failing to be a supportive father, since each time Nina raises the subject or even mentions her mother’s name, he changes the subject or walks away. He too can’t come to terms with the death of his beloved wife, so he shutters his grief away until a revelatory moment at the end of the film.
As lies are wont to do, this one takes on a life of its own, since those who hear Eleanor’s/Bessie’s story believe it and her family doesn’t know that Eleanor has been dissembling, and has no clue where she has been spending her time and with whom. Eventually, the lies unravel and Eleanor comes face to face with what she has viewed as cavalier decision, not intended to cause harm, but now recognizes that it was not overtly meant to deceive but to give voice to her grief. At one point in her confessional, Eleanor shares, “We lived together for eleven years and sometimes when you live with someone for that long, you forget where you end and they begin.”
The movie has a lovely throughline of intergenerational friendship, knowing that one is never too old to make new friends, and grief, with the awareness that it presents itself in various ways and with love, understanding and acceptance, it can be transformed and healed. As a therapist who works with clients experiencing profound loss, I can say that the portrayal of the various ways grief appears, is spot on. Collective grieving as was done in the support group, holding space for its expression, especially as it relates to the Holocaust, was beautifully done. As the camera pans over the faces of those in the group, it was easy to see the strength and resilience as they listened to Eleanor share Bessie’s story.
The other poignant aspect of the movie is that Johansson cast holocaust survivors in various roles.
If you do decide to see the film, bring tissues. At the end of the screening today, there wasn’t a dry eye in the theater (mine included) and all around me, I could hear sniffling.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
Love both the movie and your review!