Thelma (2024)
Sometimes, you want to curl up with a
pleasant little movie that is not a hyper assault on your senses. Thelma
fits that bill. It's a nice comedy-drama and an actor's picture.
The title character is 93-year-old
grandmother Thelma Post (well played by fine character actress June Squibb),
who falls for a telephone scam and loses $10,000 of her own money. However, the
elderly lady wants her money back, so she recruits another senior citizen for
help, her friend Ben (the late Richard Roundtree in his final feature film
performance), who has a motorized scooter. Together, they travel on the scooter
to the P.O. Box address where she mailed the money. Thelma's daughter (Parker
Posey), son-in-law (Clark Gregg), and grandson (Fred Hechinger) are extremely
worried and desperate to find her when she disappears to go on her mission.
First time feature director Josh
Margolin, who also wrote the film, based the main character on his real life
grandmother, Thelma, and the events in the film are also loosely based on her
adventures. The strongest aspect of the movie is the bond between Thelma and
her grandson, Daniel. Thelma feels useless because she is old, while Daniel
feels useless because he's not very good scholastically, especially in math.
Squibb and Hechinger work well together, and I can't forget to mention Squibb
and Roundtree, who are fantastic together as two elderly people trying to make
their way in the current high-tech world. And there is also a small but
memorably hilarious role by Malcolm McDowell.
Thelma is currently playing at
the AMC Elmwood Palace and the AMC Westbank Palace.
