The film follows Eleanor (June Squibb), a 94-year-old woman forced to return to New York after her best friend Bessie unexpectedly dies. The transition proves difficult when the nonagenarian realizes that no one has any time for her. To find community, Eleanor looks for activities at her local Jewish Community Center, where a misunderstanding lands her in a group for Holocaust survivors. Instead of correcting the mistake, Eleanor adopts Bessie’s Holocaust survival stories as her own and befriends Nina, a 19-year-old journalism student, who wants to write about Eleanor’s experiences. Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut is a comically poignant exploration of how the stories we hear become the stories we tell.
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