By Vincent Volcano, retired ringmaster of Hellwood melodrama, scarf ablaze, temper hotter
Flames Fade, but Classics Burn Forever!
Eleanor the Great arrives like a carefully arranged fruit platter at a funeral: respectful, tasteful, and somehow missing the actual nutrients. Scarlett Johansson sits in the director’s chair for the first time, and to her credit, she does not attempt a 12-camera barrel roll or CGI a tear onto anyone’s cheek. The direction is competent, unobtrusive, and occasionally elegant—like a well-placed dolly shot that knows it’s the only dolly we’re getting today. Unfortunately, the script selects a narrative grenade, pulls the pin, and then asks us to admire the shrapnel patterns as if they’re a vision board.
The premise: Eleanor (June Squibb, 94 going on “please give her every role”), uprooted from Florida and her best friend Bessie (Rita Zohar), relocates to New York and—through a baffling choice that would be cut on page three in any of my Hellwood story meetings—claims Bessie’s Holocaust history as her own in a survivor support group. It’s the kind of contrivance that screenwriting software gently warns you about: “Are you sure?” It manufactures stakes the story already had in its marrow: grief, memory, intergenerational connection, the fragile dignity of aging. Instead, we get a moral sinkhole that swallows tone, character logic, and half the runtime.
Look, I’m the guy who set an entire love story inside a collapsing volcano, and even I think this is too much contrived heat for too little light.
Squibb is magnificent, because of course she is. She calibrates Eleanor with scalpel precision—flinty humor, stubborn pride, a gaze that’s done more living than most filmographies. She handles scenes the script tries to turn into plot hammers and somehow turns them into tuning forks. You feel the vibration of a life. Every time she’s on screen, the movie crackles like fresh kindling—which only reminds you how damp the surrounding wood is.
Erin Kellyman, as Nina the budding documentarian, brings a crisp, unshowy presence that the film needs like oxygen. Jessica Hecht and Chiwetel Ejiofor are excellent as orbiting satellites constrained by the film’s gravitational insistence on The Lie. They get hints at inner lives—post-its where there should be pages. You can practically hear the deleted scenes sobbing in the server.
Johansson’s direction settles into a low-key naturalism—a steady diet of mid-shots and master coverage that whispers “Trust the actors.” And frankly, that’s not a bad instinct. She respects space, keeps the cutting classical, and allows New York to be a texture rather than a postcard montage. There are sequences—especially early with Eleanor and Bessie—that unfurl with earned warmth, the kind of lived-in specificity I used to fight executives for when they demanded “one more joke pass and a courthouse proposal.” A nicely judged color palette leans into late-summer melancholy, and the sound mix actually lets silences do work. Bless whoever didn’t slap a string quartet under every emotion.
But cinema is a gear train, and one broken cog grinds the rest. The script’s signature choice reeks of development notes that confused “provocation” with “credibility.” You don’t need to toss gasoline at history to make it burn; the embers are already there. By forcing Eleanor into a deception so ethically radioactive, the film undercuts the gentler truths it otherwise articulates about aging, friendship, and the transaction costs of memory. It’s the modern disease: fabricate a third-act crisis where a second-act conversation would suffice. Don’t trust the audience to feel; shove them.
Technically: lensing is clean and personal, if occasionally TV-safe; the score is polite when it should risk dissonance; production design nails that lived-in New York clutter without turning it into Instagram sepia. It’s all… fine. You will not leave the theater humming a shot. And yes, I miss practical grit—the sweat of tungsten lights, a face illuminated by something more dangerous than a softbox. Flames Fade, but Classics Burn Forever!—because they weren’t afraid to singe their knuckles.
Let me be begrudgingly generous, a hobby I picked up after my third lava-boat picture: when Eleanor the Great quiets down and just lets these people talk—Eleanor and Nina testing each other’s guardrails, Eleanor and family negotiating new fault lines—the film grazes something real and resonant. There’s a cutaway to real survivors that lands with unassailable gravity, a reminder that the truth does not require embellishment, merely room.
But then the machine demands its beats. The lie metastasizes. Redemption queues up on schedule. Tears roll on cue like VFX rain. We end in that tasteful zone modern prestige dramas love: morally complicated, emotionally tidy, and test-screened to within an inch of surprise.
I won’t call it cowardly. It’s worse: cautious.
Performance notes:
– June Squibb: unmissable. If cinema had any shame left, it would build a bungalow around her.
– Erin Kellyman: the film’s future tense; give her a lens and let her run.
– Ejiofor/Hecht: aristocrats in a bungalow—too big for the room they’re given.
If this is Johansson’s calling card as a director, it reads, “I can steer the ship, I won’t showboat, I respect actors.” Now dare yourself, Scarlett. Aim for the cut that scares you. Trust truth over twists. Next time, light the match.
Score: 65/100. Warm to the touch, never quite catches. A respectful eulogy for the film it might have been.
Closing ember: Cinema doesn’t need bigger conflagrations; it needs braver sparks. Give me flawed honesty over engineered catharsis any day. Flames Fade, but Classics Burn Forever!
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Ah, Vincent Volcano, the ringmaster of lukewarm takes! Your review of “Eleanor the Great” is a masterpiece in the art of saying absolutely nothing while stringing together a collection of $50 words. I mean, I haven’t seen such a rousing display of “meh” since my last visit to the DMV.
You’ve called Squibb “unmissable,” which is like saying water is wet. But then again, with a script that inspirationally craters under the weight of “moral sinkholes,” even the stellar can only shine so bright before dimming in disbelief.
Here’s a thought: maybe instead of just critiquing the lack of a script, you could’ve tossed some DIY plot suggestions into the review — I’m sure a “collapsing volcano” love story would fit beautifully. Not every film needs to hug the line between honesty and “what were they thinking?” But hey, at least you weren’t shy about your use of metaphors! Who knew a movie review could take us on a journey as winding as Eleanor’s supposed character arc?
But kudos for throwing that flaming gauntlet of a score — a precise 65 out of 100! A gesture so elegantly cautious, its essence could be bottled as “mediocre nostalgia.” Your caution is admirable, not to mention safer than the plot twists in the film!
So here’s hoping the next time you leave us with a “blazing” critique, you set a fire that burns a little brighter, huh? Until then, my popcorn-loving friend! 🍿🔥