Who owns grief? That's not necessarily the thesis of Scarlett Johansson's debut as a director, but it is what I kept thinking about throughout the film.

This is a story of people grieving in their own way, who discover it's easier to survive together than it is alone. At its core, it's a simple and straightforward bit of sentimentality that was the sole domain of Chris Columbus in the 90s. Now, it feels like a unique throwback, which goes to show how limited our theatrical release landscape has become.

Eleanor is 94 and her best friend has just died. She moves back to Manhattan to live with her daughter and tries to move on for however long she has left. It becomes clear that moving on isn't something that just happens, and Eleanor is lonely. Through happenstance, she ends up at a Holocaust survivors group and, in a moment of panic, loneliness, and desperation, she begins to tell her friend's story as her own.

Incredibly, said story is so profoundly moving and singular that it stops the group in their tracks. Everyone wants to hear what happened next. Even more incredibly, the group is visited by Nina (Erin Kellyman), a young journalist student who has recently lost her mother. In an effort to process her grief and grow closer to her father (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a journalist himself, Nina seeks to write about the Jewish faith her mother belonged to, but rarely practiced.

Each setup on its own would be fine ground for a feature debut. It's daring for Johansson to take them all on at once, and it becomes quickly clear that neither the script nor the film itself can handle such complex subject matter.

For example: June Squibb, who plays Eleanor, is immensely likable. Eleanor herself isn't. In fact, Eleanor is a liar, a bully, and overall kind of a brat. She gets away with it because she looks, sounds, and behaves like June Squibb in a fantasy built to cater her antics. It's almost like a cheat code to cast a charming elderly person in a part like this. Be it Squibb or Jack Nicholson, they just get away with more than anyone else would.

In the first hour that we meet her, Eleanor bullies service industry workers, belittles her family, flips off people at a church, and lies about being a holocaust survivor. If this were a black comedy, it would already play with dynamite. Yet Johansson treats these moments as charming examples of Eleanor's vibrancy. She's not difficult; it's bon vivant.

If this were a story of an angry person at the twilight of their life coming to terms with their loneliness through shared grief with the younger generation, it would work far better. Instead, Johansson and writer Tory Kamen lean into the story of Holocaust survivors so heavily, it takes the film on another course entirely. One which, considering world events, it takes on a far more troubling glow.

Eleanor the Great exists in a vacuum, yet it wants to be part of real world talking points. In one particularly clunky scene, the head of the New York University journalism program bluntly states how important the truth and journalistic process is for them. Considering recent events, it's an impossibly bad look.

There is no other tragedy, no other mass events, and no other grief in the world of Eleanor the Great. I'm not sure it needs to answer all the questions that trouble us, and it doesn't need to represent everyone, either. But because it asks us to emotionally connect with a bad person who lies their way into a community still dealing with trauma, its steadfast refusal to even acknowledge ongoing genocide makes it a lesser and even a little dishonest as a movie.

It robs itself of context and the audience the ability to think beyond the immediate. We can laugh and cry, but only in the moment. If we consider Eleanor the Great even a minute further upon exiting the theater, it unravels before our eyes. For every moment it charms us, it takes steps to build a wall around itself.

For a film about learning to find comfort in others, it's a weird and off-putting solution. One that isn't necessarily malicious, but more likely an oversight by a first-time director. Johansson shows us she can direct actors to great performances. In the future, she may show us better handling of the material as well.