Thelma (2024)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Elder Rolls

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Josh Margolin's Thelma is one of those rare movies not about people in their twenties that I can wholeheartedly recommend to my parents. It has moments of silliness and moments of slapsticky suspense, but also moments of genuine concern and humanity. It begins with a scary topic, as the 93-year-old Thelma (June Squibb) receives a phone call from someone claiming to be her grandson; he says he's in jail and needs $10,000 to be mailed to a post office box. Thelma happens to be close to her grandson, Danny (Fred Hechinger), and wonders why he sounds funny. He has a cold, he says. She digs into her life savings and sends it away.

When she realizes she's been duped, she recruits an old pal, Ben (Richard Roundtree, in his final film), who has a two-seater scooter. They head out across Los Angeles to catch the criminals and get her money back. A worried Danny and his parents (Clark Gregg and Parker Posey) try to track her down before something terrible happens. Thelma is a formidable character, and not someone you'd want to mess with, but the movie is honest about the pitfalls of age. In one scene, she has a fall in the middle of a vacant lot with no one around, and she cannot get up. It may not be Tom Cruise falling off of a cliff (Thelma and Danny are fans of the Mission: Impossible movies), but the threat is real.

What I like best about the movie, however, is the touching relationship between grandmother and grandson. Danny is kind of a screwup, but what he hasn't screwed up is that special bond. He watches movies with Thelma, drives her places, helps her with her computer, etc. They are warm to each other and joke around with each other, and they each benefit from the other's experiences. It's the movie's emotional key, and it gives Thelma a full, loving heart.