June Squibb is back above the title with Sony Pictures Classics’ ‘Eleanor the Great,’ hitting theaters September 26. The 95-year-old Oscar-nominated “Nebraska” star, whose sleeper action comedy “Thelma” charmed audiences last year, leads Scarlett Johansson‘s directorial debut — written by Tory Kamen — in what Sony Pictures Classics describes as a “comically poignant exploration of how the stories we hear become the stories we tell.”
The logline reads: “In ‘Eleanor the Great,’ June Squibb brings to vivid life the witty and proudly troublesome 94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein, who after a devastating loss, tells a tale that takes on a dangerous life of its own.’ Also appearing are Erin Kellyman, Jessica Hecht, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Johansson serves as producer alongside Jonathan Lia, Keenan Flynn, Trudie Styler, Celine Rattray, Jessamine Burgum, and Kara Durrett.
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The movie is also set to screen at TIFF in September and premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in May. Kate Erbland wrote in her IndieWire review that ‘Eleanor the Great’ is “a little predictable, a little bizarre, a little funny, and very sad, but it’s also an ambitious swing at what movies can still be (and what sort of stars can populate them).”
Discussing the project with THR, Johansson said, “It would be easier to make something that was the sequel of a $180 million movie or a genre movie that was subpar. To get much, much, much less money for an independent film with an original story that has a lead actor who was 94 was very, very, very challenging.” She added that filming in New York presented its own challenges, as well. “Every day the movie fell apart in 400 different ways. It once looked like we were going to be able to get the majority of our money from an independent financing company and then right down to the wire, in order for them to make it, we would’ve had to completely dismantle the entire plot device that was driving the narrative engine of the film. It was crazy. At that point, everything just fell apart.”
The film came together, however, in no small part due to the collective contributions of not just Johansson, but the rest of its stellar producing team. In a May edition of IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking: What No One Tells You, producer Jessamine Burgum said that “authenticity over everything” matters most in the industry. “When you’re a young person, just starting out in the industry, you can feel a lot of pressure to have all the answers. It’s competitive and you want to prove that you’re the right person for the job, but the secret really is just curiosity and hustle.”
Watch the trailer below for “Eleanor the Great,” in theaters everywhere September 26.
