- Starring
- June Squibb, Fred Hechinger, Richard Roundtree
- Director
- Josh Margolin
- Rating
- PG-13
- Genre
- Action, Comedy
- Release date
- June 21, 2024
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Rating Summary
For nearly 40 years, Cocoon has been the gold standard for action comedy dramas starring the elderly. Thelma has charged its cherry-red Hoveround and run away with the torch.
Thelma
When 93-year-old Thelma discovers that she’s been the victim of a phone phishing scam, she decides to take the law into her own wrinkled hands.
Thelma Review
Thelma’s first-time writer/director, Josh Margolin, weaves a tale grounded in the delicious and often ridiculous reality of the human condition. Superficially a parody of the modern action flick, with panache, heart, and humor, Margolin and company deconstruct the genre’s tropes to spin a tale that, at its core, is about the importance of feeling self-sufficient and how the slow deterioration of age can rob us of this. More importantly, Thelma is about embracing the reality of you and adapting to overcome our frailties rather than wallowing in them.
June Squibb, who also voiced Nostalgia in this year’s Inside Out 2, is superb as the titular Thelma. Her first leading role in a career spanning decades, her deceptively deep performance perfectly embodies the very ontology of “grandma.” She is sweet and loving, confused but not senile, feisty but not cartoonish. Her character is the perfect blend of excellent, sincere storytelling and an actress who is the embodiment of the character she is playing.
The story is straightforward and artfully simple, but Margolin’s direction and Squibb’s sweet demeanor and wonderful performance make it impossible not to fall in love with Thelma immediately. Subsequently, her vigilante quest for justice quickly feels as though it is your own. As the audience quickly latches onto Thelma, the electric current between the material, direction, and performance grounds viewers in such a way that they experience the same heart-stopping sensations as Thelma navigates seemingly mundane obstacles, as they would watching James Bond maneuver through a deadly laser maze, with the added benefit of being able to laugh at yourself for your investment in such absurdity.
Unlike in last year’s 80 for Brady, in which a group of elderly women shared one last adventure that relied heavily on convenience and unrealistic happenstance, Thelma is almost completely believable and all the better for it.
With a simple story made gripping thanks to a great mix of characters, perfect pacing, and great performances, Thelma is a delightful way to spend an hour and a half at the theater. It is absolutely Worth it.
WOKE ELEMENTS
Nothing
- Nada.
James Carrick
James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.
4 comments
Ktuff_morning
July 11, 2024 at 8:33 am
I’ll check that out on your recommend. Better not be any woke or I’ll send a strongly-worded letter to the times.
Ktuff_morning
July 23, 2024 at 12:51 pm
It was charming as intended. “How hard can using a gun be? Idiots use them all the time” LOL! I was amused to realize Thelma’s guileless “well that’s interesting” was only a veneer. Great ending. I enjoyed every moment of her calmness and centeredness which leads me to say enough with the hysterics from the younger people. I found the grandson particularly hard to watch.
White males portrayed in Hollywood tend to be boyish, soft, reflexively apologetic, weak, undignified, childish, whiny and incompetent. Always at least one of these characteristics and the grandson in this movie has them ALL Yuck. I consider this a form of woke. An apology to the audience. Isn’t demeaning yourself for all of posterity a signal to all of society on behalf of your ilk?
Caricatures undermining the dignity and authority of white males have been around for a long time; Dick Van Dyke tripping over the ottoman like a buffoon or the loathesome Charlie Brown, a model for low self esteem in young white males. By the way how can an impressionable child appreciate the pathos of Charlie Brown? They can’t. They don’t. Charles Schulz is a sick self-indulgent b*****d. He’s worse than a pedo.
I hate Dick Van Dyke. I hate Charlie Brown.
Malcolm was quite chadly however, but he’s the heavy. Never a break for the white male, eh Hollywood? Even Kevin Costner in the recent Horizon pre-apologized to the audience for portraying a white male as an alpha with the humiliation and domination of white males by a black male in the opening scenes.
Here are the rules for being a white male. Don’t grow facial hair. Don’t grow long hair. Your masculinity is expressed in your purpose. Walk with a purpose. Talk with a purpose. Keep yourself fit and strong. Be capable of fighting other men. Dress to be taken seriously. Always guard your dignity like a hawk. Always guard your reputation like a hawk. Say what you mean, mean what you say. Have your self-esteem in sharp focus. Should it even have to be said? Watching Hollywood’s portrayal of white men YES IT HAS TO BE SAID.
Mr Brady where have you gone?
Good recommend but you’re still on thin ice with me Cheswick because of your vile political and religious affiliations and you still owe me and Biden an apology for your merchandise.
Sweet Deals
July 29, 2024 at 11:18 am
Somewhere in that review, you went from “I liked the movie but hated that the grandson was wimpy” to “Any time a white male character takes a humorous pratfall, society is conspiring against white males. How evil!”
Sometimes a movie review says more about the reviewer than the movie itself. I have to admit that there are a lot of popular movies and television shows that rub me the wrong way because they trigger my own hurt feelings, and I get offended by what I see and hear, too.
I worry about you, honestly. I wonder how badly you’ve been hurt.
Ktuff_morning
August 7, 2024 at 8:50 am
Look at where you are darling. This is about woke; an organized enforcement of morality AGAINST straight white males such as myself. My concern is artistic license and self-respect.
I really enjoy the art form of movies and TV. But I’m sick of being rudely torn from the fantasy with virtue-signaling, especially the kind that specifically disincludes me. Worse, it disenfranchises me. It teaches others it’s ok to disenfranchise me in my personal life. Straight white males are under attack precious. Or shall I say, Precious?
I don’t believe you actually worry about me. I think that was a passive-aggressive insult. I think you hate straight white males. It may surprise you that I’m a proud liberal. What do you think about that hippopotamus?