At some point I asked myself why I was doing that and started allowing myself to cry in the theater. It was freeing. It feels good to cry surrounded by others who are also emotional. I remember watching the animated film ‘Up’ and realizing five minutes in that I was crying out loud. I looked around and everyone else was too. It is amazing when emotion becomes a collective experience. It is real catharsis.”

“If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry”

“Eleanor the Great” is both deeply moving and filled with humor. I asked Johansson how she sees the role of humor in life and whether she considers it a kind of weapon against reality.

“Ah, you mean something like, ‘If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry’? Then yes,” she smiled. “The script for ‘Eleanor the Great’ was also very funny. That was a gift. For me, it would have been impossible to make a film without humor. My husband, Colin Jost, who is a comedian, screenwriter and ‘Saturday Night Live’ cast member, writes comedies. I cannot really imagine living with someone who is not funny.”

Now “Eleanor the Great” is coming to Israel, and local audiences will also get to laugh and cry. The film’s protagonist, Eleanor, played by June Squibb, is an elderly Jewish woman from Florida who moves to New York to live with her daughter, played by Jessica Hecht, after the death of her dear friend and roommate of 12 years, Bessie, played by Israeli actress Rita Zohar.

Eleanor joins a support group for Holocaust survivors at a Jewish community center. To feel she belongs, she adopts Bessie’s Holocaust stories and presents them as her own. 

She befriends a young journalism student, played by Erin Kleiman, who decides to use Eleanor’s stories for an article, which leads to complications.

“For me, the moments when we see into Eleanor’s inner world are the most important,” Johansson said. “When the audience sees her grieving, guilty, lonely and disappointed. Equally important are the moments when she experiences compassion from others, like when someone at the support group tells her, ‘You have a good heart.’ 

Those are words she needed to hear because she is such a difficult person, especially with her daughter. It was important for the audience to see that part of her.” The film delivers the message that sometimes lying can be a way of telling the truth.