Eleanor The Great – Review and Summary
Eleanor The Great lives up to its name through June Squibb shouldering both the emotional weight and humor.
Spoiler Alert: This summary and review contains spoilers.
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“Eleanor The Great” Film Details
- Runtime: 1 Hour(s) and 38 Minutes
- Released On: In Theaters
- Public Release Date: September 26, 2025
- Director(s): Scarlett Johansson
- Writer(s): Tory Kamen
- Primary Language: English
- Genre(s): Comedy, Drama
- Rating: Rated PG-13
- Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
- Official Site Link
Movie Summary
Eleanor (June Squibb), a 94-year-old woman, has just lost her best friend of more than 50 years, Bess (Rita Zohar), with whom she shared a home for the last decade. Already a widow, she leaves Florida for Manhattan to temporarily live with her daughter Lisa (Jessica Hecht) and grandson Max (Will Price), who, weary of her sharp tongue and mischievous wit, make little effort to spend time with her.
Lisa, when not pushing Eleanor to check out a retirement home, urges her to visit the JCC (Jewish Community Center), where Eleanor she accidentally joins a Holocaust survivors group and befriends Nina (Erin Kellyman), a lonely 19-year-old mourning the loss of her mom. Nina is drawn to Eleanor’s charisma in speaking about the Holocaust, seeing it as not only a compelling subject for her journalism class but also a way to feel closer to her Jewish heritage.
As their bond deepens, Nina’s father, Roger Davis (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a popular news anchor, takes a rare interest in his daughter’s work and decides to elevate Eleanor’s story to the national stage. But while Eleanor has never been afraid of attention, the sudden spotlight, her unresolved grief, and her fear of isolation leave her feeling everything is spiraling out of control — with Nina at risk of becoming collateral damage.
Review and Commentary
Highlight(s)
Eleanor’s Relationship With Bess [85/100]
The intimacy in Eleanor and Bess’ relationship is so potent that, if you didn’t know better, you’d think they were either secret lesbians, or out lesbians. But that’s not it. What we get with Eleanor and Bess is the type of closeness most people crave, even if they have never seen or have been given a taste of such a close relationship.
Eleanor and Bess are that classic extrovert/introvert duo, with Eleanor the obvious extrovert, but you can see how she rubs off on Bess. Also, they have a routine that includes exercise, a little gossip, but in the middle of the night, they can also have these heart-wrenching conversations. The type where, once you said your peace, you easily could find yourself sleeping like a baby.
This combination sets the scene and allows you to see, as much as Eleanor can be something else, cutting to both strangers and her own child, that is but one side of her. She is just as capable of being emotionally mature and someone’s safe space, as someone feared for what may come out of her mouth next.
Nina’s Relationship With Eleanor [87/100]
Case in point, Nina’s relationship with Eleanor. No sooner do you realize why Lisa is trying to get Eleanor out of her apartment, Nina comes into Eleanor’s life and shows that, as much as Eleanor can be a lot to handle, she is honestly just someone who has no desire to settle into being a stereotypical old lady. She wants to hang out and have fun, eat pizza, talk about sex, and maybe have a battle of wits with a Rabbi.
But, at the same time, she wants to deeply connect with people and show that her age has come with wisdom. It has also come with a bit of entitlement, loneliness, and perhaps not moving as quickly as she wants. Still, Nina and this intergenerational relationship shows that you can maintain your complexity in old age and not be written off. In fact, sometimes that attitude is just what someone like Nina needs, who has no desire to be handled like a porcelain doll but wants, perhaps needs, someone who may acknowledge her mother’s death, but doesn’t shy away from the topic, just because it can lead to tears.
In a multitude of ways, you see Eleanor not just coming into Nina’s life at the right time regarding her school project, but also being someone who can help Nina understand her mom in ways she didn’t get to. After all, at 19, Nina just exited that possible rebel phase and now is transitioning to that reconciliation of truth one, where she wants and needs to figure out who her parents are outside of being mom and dad. Roger has basically cut himself off from that, and with Jeannie (Kathryn Mayer), Nina’s mom, gone, who else but Eleanor can give some idea of what it means to be Jewish, even if Jeannie wasn’t an active participant?
I mean, just watching this warms your heart in ways that really gets you to understand why, despite how different the many generations are, we need each other not just to survive, but to thrive.
The Complicated Depiction of Grief [84/100]
There is a moment in which a story from the holocaust is told, and we get a sense that there is survivor’s guilt. Then, to add another layer on that, with getting older comes the fear of not only your own death, but the death of those who you might be the only one to remember. It reminds you of that saying that everyone has two deaths, with the first being the physical and the second being when no one speaks your name again.
The way that is handled feels impactful, especially with how Roger handles Jeannie’s death. He doesn’t talk about her, avoids the subject, and you can see why that cuts so deep for Nina since keeping her mother alive requires bringing up how she lived. The same goes for Eleanor. Bess was her best friend, roommate, witness to her life, and with Lisa and Eleanor’s relationship strained for who knows how long, Bess likely held a lot of Eleanor’s joys and sorrows over the years.
Losing that is shown to be immensely painful, and it definitely triggers some of the cry-worthy moments of the film. I’d even say, if you lost someone you loved recently, it may leave you sobbing to the point of it being a challenge to see what’s happening on screen.
The Story Eleanor Tells of Her Experience During The Holocaust [86/100]
In the grand scheme of things, when speaking about any oppressed culture or race, more often than not, men are usually centered. If it isn’t men telling the stories, it is a shared experience dealing with how they felt, what they lost, and while there are, of course, exceptions, it is not the rule.
So when it comes to Eleanor The Great and Eleanor speaking about the Holocaust, not necessarily giving a strictly woman’s point of view, but what happened to her, what she felt, her feelings of loss, her survival guilt – her centering the story around what she experienced, it was different in the best way.
Add in the conversation regarding how the Jewish faith evolved for women, including having a bat mitzvah, which was not common when Eleanor was a child, it reminds you that while men often write the stories, their history isn’t the complete account of what happened.
As Much As This Can Make You Cry, It Will Make You Laugh As Well [88/100]
While a lot of the highlights of Eleanor The Great certainly are the emotional weight of the story, I would be remiss not to point out how funny June Squibb is and how she balances both acting as comic relief and carrying the burden of the emotional scars of her character and others.
At times, though Squibb has long made her own lane, she reminds you of the mark Betty White left on comedy, and while never raunchy or outright vulgar, Squibb does sometimes take things as far as you can in a PG-13 movie. Making it so Eleanor can be seen as a human being who has not only lived life, but has had a lot of damn fun all throughout, and doesn’t plan to stop until her heart stops beating.
Overall
Our Rating (86/100): Positive (Worth Seeing) – Recommended
Eleanor the Great, yes, is a sob story, a feel-good one in some ways, but I wouldn’t dare say it comes off like awards-bait or corny. It’s one of those films that are great for a good cry, a healing laugh, and a reminder of how important connection is, whether you’re someone who still has -teen at the end of your age, or for someone approaching 100.
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