Eleanor the Great (2025)
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2025-09 to 2026-08
A 94-year-old woman in New York City finds an unexpected connection with a grieving student after a misunderstanding at a community center.
The story
After the death of her best friend, 94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein moves from Florida to New York City to live with her family. Feeling isolated by her busy relatives, she is dropped off at a local Jewish Community Center. There, a misunderstanding leads her into a support group for Holocaust survivors. Instead of correcting the mistake, Eleanor begins sharing her friend's harrowing story as if it were her own to cope with her loneliness. This fabricated history catches the attention of Nina Davis, a grieving journalism student. The two form an unlikely bond as Nina begins to incorporate Eleanor's testimony into a project, while Eleanor's family remains unaware of the deception.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
After the death of her best friend Bessie, 94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein moves to New York City. Feeling isolated by her family, she attends a support group for Holocaust survivors where she mistakenly shares Bessie's survival story as her own to find a sense of belonging. This deception is discovered by her daughter, Lisa, during a filming session for a project by Nina, a grieving journalism student. The revelation causes public humiliation for Eleanor's family and a rift between the women. However, after Nina's father, a news anchor named Roger, broadcasts a segment focusing on the universal theme of grief, the women reconcile. Eleanor eventually moves to a care home where she finds new friends. The film concludes with a flashback to Eleanor and Bessie during the Holocaust, revealing that Bessie shared her story so that she could find and share her life with Eleanor.
- First release year
- 2025
- Runtime (minutes)
- 98
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Scarlett Johansson
- Writers
- Tory Kamen · writer
- Cast and characters
- June Squibb · Eleanor Morgenstein; Erin Kellyman · Nina Davis; Jessica Hecht · Lisa; Chiwetel Ejiofor · Roger Davis; Rita Zohar · Bessie Stern; Will Price · Max; Greg Kaston · Peter
- Genres
- comedy-drama
- Themes
- aging; Jewish identity; grief
- Tone and mood
- drama
- Premise and plot tags
- unlikely friendship; multigenerational
- Reception
- The film received mixed or average reviews from critics.
- Reported review scores
- Metacritic · score: 52 · scale: 100 · review count: 28
- Production trivia
- Scarlett Johansson's feature film directorial debut; The film was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival 2025
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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