Ah, America in the 60’s – when greatness abounded and walls were only a dream! Dear Eleanor is an upcoming comedy / drama / adventure about two teenage girls, Max the Wax (Isabelle Fuhrman) and Ellie Potter (Liana Liberato), taking a non-parent-approved road trip in order to meet the former US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
It’s directed by Kevin Connolly, best known for playing Eric “E” Murphy on Entourage, and is the debut of the writing team of Cecelia Contreras and Amy Garcia who (as imdb informs me) are the first female writing team to earn a Nicholl Fellowship from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – which is “an international screenwriting competition established to identify and encourage talented new screenwriters”.
The official, and rather brief, plot synopsis is as follows:
Two teenage girls travel across the U.S. in 1962, during the chaos of the Cuban missile crisis, in search of Eleanor Roosevelt.
Yes there’s no denying that this looks saccharine sweet and rather silly plot-wise – however it doesn’t seem to shy away from that but rather embraces it, which works to its benefit I think.
There were also bits which genuinely made me chuckle – like the scene where the dad drops the phone after being asked whether they can go to KFC – and it has a fairly good cast to boot, so this movie could hold some surprises for us. What do you think?
Dear Eleanor is due for release in the US on 5 July. It stars Isabelle Fuhrman, Liana Liberato, Jessica Alba, Josh Lucas, Luke Wilson and Patrick Schwarzenegger – yes, the son of the Terminator himself. And we’re stuck with the defective offspring of Johnny 5.
Last Updated: May 4, 2016
