June Squibb’s delightful performance anchors a sweet comedy with heart to spare. Here’s our Thelma review.
If we can add one plot point to the action movie cliché bible Sylvester Stallone keeps in his garage, let it be “phone scammers suck”.
After the runaway success (in our eyes) of The Beekeeper earlier this year, writer-director Josh Margolin’s sugar cube-sweet comedy takes a less bloody approach to the subject. When 93-year-old Thelma (June Squibb) receives a panicked phone call from her grandson, Danny (Fred Hechinger) asking for $10,000 to get him out of prison, she doesn’t hesitate.
Except the young man on the other end of an unknown number isn’t Danny. After a few scoffs and ‘I told you so’s from her daughter and son-in-law, Thelma overhears her family discussing whether it might be best for her to move into a home.
For our fiercely independent protagonist, this is a nightmare scenario. Inspired by an ageing Tom Cruise’s antics in Mission: Impossible – Fallout, she decides to track the money down. With the help of her old friend Ben (Richard Roundtree) and his red chrome mobility scooter, she sets out on a journey to reclaim not just her cash – but her independence.
What follows is probably the sweetest revenge thriller you’ll ever set eyes on. Thelma’s journey isn’t hampered by masked criminals or an over-zealous police department. She no longer drives, so there are no high-octane car chases. The film’s only gun looks like it fell out of the Korean War and is used more for property damage than violence.
Instead, Thelma is slowed down by cries of “I know them!” which kick off ten-minute conversations with strangers in car parks. Ben’s mobility scooter is framed like a sports car, Nick Chuba’s score investing it with the same kind of cool factor usually reserved for Bond’s Aston Martin. Even the on-screen villains of the piece, Parker Posey and Clark Gregg’s well-meaning daughter and son-in-law, are more pesky than detestable.
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While all this goes on in a pitch-perfect parody of action cliches, Thelma has moments of beautifully genuine heart. Whether it’s in Thelma and Ben’s visit to a friend in her cockroach-sheltering apartment, or in the duo’s opposing attitudes to growing old, the film approaches the aging process with a nuance and a gentleness that proves surprisingly moving all on its own. That this is Rowntree’s final feature film after he passed away in late 2023 only adds to the poignancy.
Thelma’s relationship with grandson Danny is little short of adorable, as the pair find common ground in her struggle for independence and his 24-year-old quarter life crisis. Squibb’s performance here provides an anchor not just for plenty of comic moments, but an authentic sweetness that turns the whole film into a smile-factory without feeling too saccharine. What a lovely film this is.
Thelma arrives in UK cinemas Friday 19th July
