This winsome feelgood comedy featuring the most unlikely action heroine is a touching and funny tribute to the old age.
Thelma (June Squibb) is 93 years old. She still lives by herself, and has a strong bond with her grandson Daniel (Fred Hechinger), a good-natured Gen Z slacker. When one day Thelma gets a panicked call from Daniel begging her for $10,000 to get him out of trouble, she promptly collects the cash and posts it to a P.O. box. Except that the phone call didn’t come from Daniel at all and Thelma has fallen victim to a scam.
Thelma feels utterly humiliated, but she’s not ready to give up. Earlier on, she and Daniel watch Tom Cruise sprint across the rooftops in one of his Mission: Impossible movies, and now Thelma finds inspiration in Ethan Hunt’s globe-trotting heroics. She does what most scam victims only dream of doing, and goes on a revenge mission to get her money back. Her unlikely accomplice is Ben (Richard Roundtree), an old acquaintance she’s ignored for years, who now lives in assisted living and joins Thelma after she attempts to steal his red scooter. Meanwhile, Daniel and his overprotective parents (Parker Posey and Clark Gregg) are in a state of panic, and set off after Thelma.
This premise could have easily come off as overly twee, goofy or condescending, but Thelma strikes the exactly right tone. It is absolutely hilarious to watch the usual action tropes given geriatric treatment while appropriately high-octane score plays on, from a low-speed chase in the hallway to the heroes walking away from a scene with a fiery explosion in the background. Thelma’s attempt to steal a gun from a friend’s bedroom is treated like a risky mission with its own age-appropriate stunts. Yes, Tom Cruise may have dangled off the world’s tallest building in Dubai, but has he attempted going up a staircase when your aged body means that you might never get up after a fall?
The movie never loses sight of the darker, sadder side of ageing even as it mines laughs from it, with a layer of melancholy that is never too far from the surface. It constantly reckons with frailties and vulnerabilities of its heroine and her fellow seniors she encounters along the way. Thelma is determined and resourceful but not perfect; her fierce desire for independence can also let her down at times. June Squibb’s lovely, deeply humane performance makes sure that Thelma never falls into the lazy, cutesy old people stereotypes.
The film is a tad less successful when it concentrates on Daniel’s attempts to sort out his aimless life, and comedic moments involving his parents mostly fall flat. Mercifully, they don’t detract too much from the main storyline, and Daniel’s relationship with his grandmother is genuinely sweet and moving from their very first scene together; the fact that they’re both underestimated and infantilised by Daniel’s parents gives them a common ground. Thelma also has a sparkling buddy chemistry with Ben, who makes for a great foil to her character, with a very different point of view on ageing and independence. There’s just a wonderful sense of empathy to the movie, which in the end is extended even to the villains of the story.
Thelma was apparently inspired by the writer-director Josh Margolin‘s real-life grandmother, and the affection it has for its white-haired avenger really shines through. You don’t often see 90-year-olds as heroes of their own story in movies, let alone action heroes, so it’s nice to see them honoured in this fun, poignant, life-affirming adventure.
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