A riff on Mission Impossible, THELMA puts the zing into Zimmer frame, and the go into Gofer, proving a 93 year old woman on Cruise control can shaft scammers and give them their comeuppance.
Thelma Post, a fiercely independent widowed 93-year-old grandmother gets conned by a phone scammer pretending to be her grandson and sets out on a seeming impossible mission across Los Angeles to reclaim what was taken from her.
She enlists an old pal now enjoying life in a retirement village primarily because he has a motorised scooter but also bears a striking resemblance to that black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks, the cat that wont cop out when there’s danger all about, that bad mother (shut your mouth), Shaft.
THELMA is the last feature film for Richard Roundtree and the film is dedicated to him. He is a terrific support to June Squibb in the title role.
Indeed Squibb’s sensational performance is surrounded by a squad of superior supporting actors including Parker Posey is Thelma’s daughter, Clark Gregg as her son in law, and Malcolm McDowell as the emphysema stricken, oxygen cylinder hobbled, cigarette addicted scammer.
Inspired by a real-life experience of writer director Josh Margolin’s own grandmother, THELMA puts a clever spin on movies like MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, shining the spotlight on an elderly grandmother as an unlikely action hero.
With a sly humour and a tincture of hubris, Margolin employs the familiar tropes of the action genre in hilarious, age-appropriate ways to tackle ageing with agency. But it’s not all one way, as independence and institutionalisation are given equal weight. One sequence featuring Bunny Levine as Mona an old friend of Thelma is poignantly tragicomic.
In the first leading film role of her 70-year career, Squibb portrays the strong-willed Thelma with grit and determination, demonstrating that she is more than capable of taking care of business.
THELMA is a pretty impressive feature film debut by Josh Margolin. Look forward to seeing what he comes up with next.
