Thelma
Seen at the 2024 Atlanta Film Festival
This is the sort of sly movie that draws us in on its premise, but then flattens us with its emotional grounding. June Squibb being a woman on a mission is what people will talk about most in selling the film, but for me, it’s the ways in which writer-director Josh Margolin treats the struggles of both aging, and being a caregiver, that I will carry from this film going forward.
Thelma, Squibb’s character, is two years removed from losing her husband. She still lives on her own, often being aided doing general tasks by her grandson, Danny (Fred Hechinger). He is always worried about her, though, and has a button for falls that he wants her to wear whenever she’s alone. One day, she gets a concerning call from Danny, saying he’s in jail. She gets a follow-up call asking her for $10000. She delivers, but it’s when she reaches out to her daughter (Parker Posey) and they get a hold of Danny that they realize she’s been scammed. The police are no help, but Thelma is determined to get her money back. She enlists her friend, Ben (Richard Roundtree) for his scooter, but soon, the pair are on the road, and no one knows where they are.
There’s a point in the film where Thelma is talking to Ben, and she explains how the two years she’s been without her husband are the first two years she’s been on her own in her life. I remember when I got married in 2015. It was very anxiety-raising for my mother. As we talked, it occurred to me that she was facing the same situation Thelma is in; because I lived at home at the time, me moving in with my wife was going to have her living alone for the first time in her life. It was a struggle up until the point where we had to move her in to assisted living three years ago, but she held on fiercely to her independence those five-plus years. I have no doubt that, if something like this had happened to her, she would have been resolute in finding the people responsible.
Her grandson, Danny, seems to be the family that is most responsible for her well-being, but he is struggling himself. He doesn’t have much in the way of direction in life, and his ability to learn is stunted. So when he loses Thelma- or rather, she loses him- he’s really hard on himself. We don’t want to think we’d make such a big mistake when it comes to looking after a loved one, but it’s important that we don’t let such a thing define us. I feel strongly for Danny in this film because there have been more than a few times where I feel like I let the people in my life I was trying to take care of. It’s not Danny’s fault, though; Thelma has a lot of spunk left in her.
The journey that Thelma and Ben take, however, is the heart of the movie, and it’s equal parts enjoyable and sobering to them. They are sometimes faced with situations they can take control of, and some they cannot. They eventually make it to their destination, and like every other stop along the way, the challenges are many, and sometimes, we just need to ask for help.
“Thelma” is a lovely 97-minute journey to take, with great performances, narrative invention, and emotional heft that resonates. I cannot thank Margolin enough for making it, and making me feel seen in ways films rarely do.
