June Squibb | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

The movie “Eleanor the Great” is a simple and small movie marking the directorial debut of Scarlett Johansson. Eleanor is played by 95-year-old June Squibb (she turns 96 in November 2025), who once again has a very funny and likable presence in this film.

The story is about Eleanor living in Florida with a long-term friend Bessie (Rita Zohar), who for years tells Eleanor about the experiences of her brother and family during the Holocaust. When Bessie dies, Eleanor decides to move to New York City to be with her daughter Lisa (Jessica Hecht) and grandson Max (Will Price). During a Holocaust group therapy session, Eleanor tells some of these Holocaust stories she heard from her friend, unfortunately, not making it clear that these were not her experiences.

Eleanor then becomes friends with a young college student, Nina (Erin Kellyman), who wants to write about her Holocaust experiences. Nina later involves her father, Roger (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who has a TV show, in this project. This story which started very simply, soon becomes complicated with Eleanor getting into trouble with Nina and her father for lying, even though the whole fiasco was a simple misunderstanding.

This story was very well told, along with excellent acting throughout. This movie received a low 66% rating due to its simple story, but in my opinion, the simplicity is the best part of this screenplay, with my rating 80% and a recommendation.

The new movie “Thelma” is the second in recent months about criminal scammers who prey on old people and steal their money. In the film “The Beekeeper” starring Jason Statham an older woman was scammed over the phone by a lowlife criminal who used a virus and computer glitch to steal money from her bank account.

For this film, Thelma, a 94-year-old woman played by June Squibb was called by a scammer, who sounded like her grandson and said he was in jail and needed 10 thousand dollars bail to be mailed to a PO box. For vulnerable old people, scams like this happen all the time and account for billions of dollars stolen every year. For this story, Thelma then decides to take the extremely improbable path of tracking down the criminals and getting her money back.

First, Thelma meets up with her friend at a nursing home Ben, played by the late Richard Roundtree, in one of his best and final acting roles. Thelma then steals his scooter and after Ben catches up with her, they both set out to find the criminals at the PO Box and try to get her 10K back. There are some funny scenes as Thelma struggles to use computers, like most old people who are not computer savvy. There are some well-acted scenes with Thelma’s daughter Gail, played by Parker Posey, and her husband Alan, played by Clark Greg.

The best relationship in this movie is with Thelma and her grandson Daniel, played by Fred Hechinger. There are some very well-done scenes in this movie showing the bond Thelma has with her grandson, especially at the conclusion of this good, but not great movie.

It is very impressive that June Squibb, at age 94, is still acting and doing a very good job in her roles, and this one just might give her another Academy Award nomination.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating of 99% for this movie is too high, with my rating a solid 85% rating and a recommendation to see this movie for its good acting and humor.