Oscar nominee and Tony winner Scarlett Johansson has embraced her Jewish side — fiercely so — with the release of her directorial debut, “Eleanor the Great.”
The film, which follows the adventures of a 94-year-old Jewish woman played by 95-year-old Jewish actress June Squibb, will open in theaters around the Bay Area on Sept. 26.
“Certainly the Jewish identity piece of this story is something that I felt I could confidently execute because it’s in my DNA,” Johannson said in a Deadline Hollywood interview in May. “I grew up identifying as a Jewish kid, growing up in New York.”
In the film, title character Eleanor Morgenstein takes the bold step of moving to Manhattan from Florida. She’s grieving the loss of her best friend, a Holocaust survivor, and annoying her daughter, with whom she now lives. One day, Eleanor mistakenly finds herself at a support group for Holocaust survivors, but instead of leaving she decides to stay. That choice changes her life, especially after she meets a budding journalist, a young Jew of color. They find a real friendship, but can a relationship built on lies still create good?
It’s a heartstring-puller, but the film also deals with duplicity, betrayal and how love can live past death.
It’s also a loving and urgent tribute to the important role Holocaust survivors have played in ensuring the tragedy of the Shoah is remembered, and how as time goes on there are fewer and fewer left to testify.
“It’s 250,000 people today [still alive] but in a year it’ll be a lot less,” Johannson said. “There is I think a surprising … sense of urgency in getting this story, getting this film made.”
Johansson’s Jewish heritage comes through her mother.
“I dedicated the film to my own grandmother, Dorothy Sloan,” Johansson said in the film’s press release. “She was a very independent, vivacious Jewish woman who was involved in tenant activism, loved the city, and enjoyed participating in all the free art programs that New York had to offer.”
In 2017, Johannson appeared on the PBS genealogy show “Finding Your Roots,” where she learned that while her great-grandfather had safely immigrated to America in 1910, his whole family died in the Holocaust.
According to the film’s press release, Johansson talked to Holocaust survivors to make sure the film felt real and fair to them and cast actual survivors to appear in the film.
Squibb has a Jewish background, as well. Like her character, she converted. According to an article in the Jewish Journal, Squibb has said she fell in love with Judaism even though she ended up divorced from her Jewish husband, and that she continues to identify as Jewish and celebrate Jewish holidays.
Of playing the character Eleanor, Squibb told Deadline Hollywood that “she’s not afraid to say anything. I found that really inspiring.”
“Eleanor the Great” opens in theaters on Sept. 26 in San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Mill Valley, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Petaluma, Emeryville, Berkeley, Moraga, Livermore, Sacramento, Roseville and Woodland.