Thelma

Rated M | Some coarse language

Forget James Bond, and forget Tom Cruise; Thelma Post is my new action hero. Or perhaps I should say June Squibb – the seemingly indefatigable 94-year-old who plays the title character in Thelma.

In reality, both are extraordinary, for the personality and style of the titular character is based very closely on writer-director Josh Margolin’s own grandmother Thelma, a quick-witted, sassy lady who turned 104 in July and is tickled pink at being the inspiration for a major film.

And why wouldn’t she be? Margolin has depicted her with love and insight, using a real-life incident as the germ for a story that turns the action genre hilariously on its head. 

In the movie, Thelma is a widow who has lived alone since the loss of her husband two years earlier. Hers is a quiet life that follows a predictable rhythm of cross stitch, daily meds, online solitaire, TV and exercises. Her family worries constantly about her safety and capacities, and while Thelma knows she can’t do all the things she once did, she unsurprisingly doesn’t like to be told.

She’s smart and fiercely independent but not great with technology, so when a caller pretending to be her grandson Danny says he needs $10,000 urgently after a bad accident, Thelma falls for the scam. However, when she finds out she has been duped – and the police seem unable to help – she determines to get the money back herself. 

At this point in your average action story, the hero would have to jet across the globe to wherever the mastermind was located, and we’d be treated to scenes of ever-increasing daring, complexity and pyrotechnics. But for a woman in her 90s with all the attendant health issues, even getting across town is a major undertaking.

Enter Thelma’s elderly friend Ben (a lovely portrayal by Richard Roundtree) and his motor scooter. Before long, the two of them are off across greater Los Angeles to retrieve her money, while Danny and his agitated parents imagine the worst as they try to find her.

There’s plenty to like in this part of the story alone, but Thelma is so much better than that, as the excellent script and ensemble cast explore with real poignancy many of the struggles of ageing, such as issues with memory, losing loved ones, physical ailments, loneliness and frustration at the attitudes of others. 

Josh Margolin cleverly combines laugh-out-loud humour with scenes that may well bring you to tears. He doesn’t shy away from the truth that getting old, and being old, is hard, but he also helps us to laugh at it – in a good way – and revel in Thelma’s adventurous spirit. She’s the everywoman who won’t give in, and who gets one back at the scammers in a way we’d all love to do. 

In our toss-away culture, society needs to repent of its careless attitude to the elderly. As God’s people we’re called not just to provide for our elders, but to listen to them and honour their years of experience and wisdom. And although Thelma is in no way a Christian film, beneath the humour on its surface is a clear challenge not to take our parents, grandparents or elderly friends for granted.

Mission Impossible – which gets more than a passing nod in Thelma – was never so memorable.