If you could be anyone for a day, who would you choose to be? No doubt the answer would run the gamut, from historical figures to world-renowned icons, or perhaps a more humble individual would choose something not quite as intense but still nonetheless meaningful. The truth is, we yearn to achieve the impossible, even if only in fantasy. However, the answer we give can often be quite revealing, if for nothing else than just as a means to underline our innermost desires, or hint at something much deeper. This is the premise used when crafting Eleanor the Great, in which we are introduced to the titular character, a woman who is forced to move back to New York City after the death of her best friend, and her efforts to overcome the loneliness eventually result in her finding a new group of friends. The problem is, she doesn’t realise the quality that binds them until it is too late, by which point she has already committed wholeheartedly to a lie that she hopes will remain concealed to this small group, not realising how fast information can spread without her knowledge. It’s a charming concept, and one that has a lot of promise – enough to impel Scarlett Johansson to take the script by Tory Kamen and choose to bring it to life as her directorial debut. It is always admirable when an actor-turned-direct opts to make their first film a more complex, unconventional affair, and Eleanor the Great is certain unorthodox – but it doesn’t quite reach the heights that we may have expected, being only mildly amusing at the best of times, and ultimately never doing anything particularly revolutionary, despite its best intentions and unwavering willingness to push a few boundaries where necessary, being a perfectly entertaining but ultimately quite minor work that may not give Johansson the chance to develop her authorial voice, but keeps us mostly invested throughout, more than enough for such a small, quaint concept.

At first, we are led to believe that Eleanor the Great is simply going to be a film about someone rediscovering their love for being alive quite late in life. There has always been a sub-genre of films (in both comedy and drama, although it’s more common to find them overlapping) about older people getting a new lease of life – whether through undertaking a physical journey that matches their eventual metaphysical one, or through befriending someone who helps them overcome the grizzled cynicism that is usually associated with the elderly community. This is where this film begins, but it reveals quite fast that it is focused on themes much deeper than just an adorable 94-year-old discovering the joys of life yet again. I’d argue that the reason Johansson was drawn to this material was the various twists and turns that lurk beneath the surface, with the eventual revelation being that the titular character decides to masquerade as a survivor of the Holocaust, using the stories told by her now-deceased best friend as the material for these meetings and her eventual discovery by a rambunctious young journalist with whom she becomes good friends. This sounds like a potentially very interesting concept, especially for a film that is apparently trying to exist at the perfect intersection between comedy and drama, using a ridiculous scenario as the platform for some very complex conversations. This eventually leads to the realisation that Eleanor the Great is a film about grief and how the process of mourning a loss is not always easy to define – for some people, the memory of someone is kept alive by telling their stories, even if it can be through slightly immoral or unethical ways. There is a lot of potential for these ideas, and Johansson does what she can to underline the qualities that speak to us on a more universal level, but it doesn’t quite come together in the way we’d expect, despite some very promising qualities found throughout.

One of the great regrets we are going to have is discovering June Squibb too late – the fact that someone with so much talent and charisma remained out of the public eye for decades before quietly becoming more of a presence on screen later in life is quite sad, since it makes us realise how many more phenomenal performances we could have witnessed had she been afforded these opportunities earlier in life. However, what a fortune it is to have found her at all, and no one has made the best of her situation than Squibb, who is relishing in being positioned as a leading lady, something that very few (if any) actors over the age of ninety can say they received so late in their careers. Needless to say, if there’s any reason to watch Eleanor the Great, she is absolutely one of them, if not the primary motivation to give this otherwise quite small and inconsequential film our time – we don’t get to witness someone so joyful about the opportunity to lead a film, every decision she makes coming from a place of genuine affection for the craft. She also gets the opportunity to momentarily shed the usual sweetness that has defined her previous work – to call a Squibb character unlikable seems impossible, but Eleanor the Great gives her the chance to add layers to this persona, not being afraid to be more callous in areas where it makes sense. She’s so wonderful and carries the film almost entirely on her own – not many actors of her age can remain so wholeheartedly convincing while also clearly having fun. The experience of seeing Squibb hailed as the star she has always been has truly been extraordinary, and we can only wish more directors would look towards the older generations when casting their films, since age is truly just a number, and that truly incredible work can come from the people we’d least expect to be so outrageously compelling when appearing on screen.

Unfortunately, Eleanor the Great is not a film that always works particularly well, and a lot of that has to do with the execution. Squibb is absolutely magnetic, and she is the last person one would blame for the ambivalence we feel towards the film. Instead, the majority of the blame has to go to Johansson, who struggled to find the right tone for this story. The first act of the film is almost entirely comedy – offbeat humour aplenty, following the protagonist as she wanders around, stirring mischief wherever she goes. This is perfectly fine (and may have made a fantastic film all on its own), but it is followed by developments that don’t quite match it, and instead actively seem to be contradicting what we had already been shown at the outset. The film is ultimately not sure whether it wants to be an irreverent but softhearted comedy or a sombre, depressing existential drama, and while they’re not mutually exclusive, there needed to be some degree of consistency in how the story was brought to life, which proves to be the area in which the director struggles the most. It also doesn’t help that the story shifts away from the titular character far too often, dwelling on a sub-plot regarding her new friend and her father, who are such thinly-drawn, bland characters (not helped by the fact that Erin Kellyman and Chiwetel Ejiofor seem to not realise the film they are in, since they’re giving such serious, stone-faced performances that don’t quite work alongside Squibb’s happy-go-lucky optimism), and whose contributions to the plot were not even vaguely as interesting. While we can understand the motivation to shift focus to another story in preparation for the final act when the two narratives come together, it doesn’t leave much of an impression, being more superficial and uninteresting than anything else in the film. Emotionally, Eleanor the Great has some solid moments, but it’s not particularly special, and its predictability and tendency to go for the obvious resolution rather than challenging its characters can be profoundly frustrating.

It’s not difficult to see why there was so much excitement for Eleanor the Great – it has a very promising concept, and is led by someone who may truly be the most purely magnetic presence we’ve seen in years (and that’s not just fawning affection – Squibb is legitimately fantastic), so the fact that it was greenlit was not an anomaly. Unfortunately, it is a project that doesn’t benefit from being a debut. Instead, it required a more seasoned director, someone who could take hold of this challenging script and explore every nook and cranny, rather than doing a more surface-level analysis of its themes, which is where we find Johansson spending most of her time with this film. It’s a generic film as far as its themes tend to go, and it struggles to elevate itself beyond the bare minimum, which would have been less of a problem had someone who knew how to balance these various components had been recruited to tell this story – especially someone older and who had enough life experience to understand the feeling of being old and helpless, rather than a director who seems to be using only her closest approximation to guide the narrative. Nonetheless, Eleanor the Great is still a decently good time, at least in terms of how it approaches the subject matter, being tender while also not being afraid to take a few risks when they are required, which does at least show some skill went into its creation, even if not extensively enough to earn much of our attention after a while. Solid but mostly unremarkable beyond a few decent moments in which we do find a genuine connection being formed, Eleanor the Great is not essential, but is at least worth watching to see Squibb delivering a stellar performance, and for the origins of what we can hope will be a directorial career that takes the lessons learned when making this debut and uses them when mounting her next creative offering.