Every good action hero knows you’ve got to stick to your guns. Ethan Hunt is a marathon-running master of disguise. John Wick has never lost count of his remaining bullets. Jackie Chan’s various inspectors and agents view the world as their personal set of monkey bars. When writer/director Josh Margolin’s debut Thelma keeps its sights trained on its rogue granny on a mission (June Squibb), its hilarious geriatric reframe of action-movie tropes has a game champion. Like its absentminded hero, the film can sometimes get sidetracked right when things are getting good, wandering down schmaltzy or twee narrative paths. But when it lets Thelma (and Squibb) do her thing, the comedy is perfectly cute and a stellar showcase for what an actor’s late career can offer.
In fact, much of Thelma is about adjusting our ideas around aging. There’s novelty in the comedic turns from the 94-year-old Squibb and her 81-year-old co-star, Richard Roundtree (in his final film role). These actors get to tap a well that’s unique to their age and the genre without sticking them into the boxes that generally contain old performers. They’re not utterly dignified, wisdom-dispensing elders. They’re not tragic victims of time. And they’re certainly, blessedly not the dreaded “rapping grannies” who are more punchline than performer. As the pair abscond on their quest to retrieve Thelma’s stolen savings, solicited from her cookie jar and mattress by phone scammers, they’re clearly complex, pulling off warm humor, endless charm and impressive stunts. A 94-year-old doesn’t have to ride a motorcycle off a cliff to make you gasp.
Like child actors using their rubber bodies and too-cute grins to their advantage, advanced age becomes a tool Squibb and Roundtree are encouraged to incorporate. Their slow shuffles and quiet frustrations ground you in their over-the-top adventure. Before Thelma, I’m not sure I ever would’ve considered “getting up from a fall” as the basis for a setpiece bringing two characters together. It’s a testament to the cast and the seriousness with which Margolin takes his subject that this scene isn’t just heartwarming, but exciting.
Many of the little genre gags Margolin includes in his script are silly-sweet, spy movie nonsense for the gray-hairs: Hearing aids replacing earpieces, a high speed scooter chase, computer hacking that’s actually just closing a pop-up. The best laughs, though, come from Squibb’s deadpan deliveries of relatable elderly eccentricities. Nothing feels cheap or mean-spirited here. Her performance balances physical comedy and perfect timing; she’ll deliver Margolin’s solid jokes, but it’s all the better that she can do so while realistically looking like my grandmother struggling to type a Facebook message. The ironic competence needed to believably, consistently embody the left-field foibles and unexpected turns of an older mind is sneakily impressive, and Squibb—whose Oscar nomination for Nebraska came a full decade ago—thrives in the contradiction.
Conducting all this, Margolin proves himself a skilled comedy filmmaker. He doesn’t get in the way of Squibb’s reactions, nor Roundtree’s timeless charisma. His pacing is quick, his writing is smart and he even pulls off a bit of stylistic parody, tracking Thelma’s slow navigation of a cluttered antique store like he’s watching Milla Jovovich slink through a laser-guarded hallway. But Thelma never dives too deeply into simplistic satire that its references overwhelm its originality, or its atmosphere becomes toothlessly zany. It’d be exhausting if it tried to make its cast jump through the broad hoops of a Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker-style spy spoof.
But it’s equally exhausting when we leave Squibb and Roundtree for Thelma’s concerned family. Accompanying Thelma’s daughter (Parker Posey) and son-in-law (Clark Gregg) in their stressed-out search for the at-large Thelma are some of the film’s more cloying themes, specifically wrapped up in the agency of her slacker grandson Danny (Fred Hechinger). Hechinger plays the part endearingly, but we don’t need more films about twentysomethings learning to take some initiative. We need more films about nonagenarians accidentally discharging firearms and attempting to email. Straying back to the staid (and stationary) family dynamics of more typical indie comedies saps the unlikely energy from Thelma’s caper.
Still, these less assured and more familiar moments merely make up the uninspired connective tissue holding together an impressive tale of retiree revenge. Thelma’s emphasis on the unique pleasures found at different stages of life works because we can see the trust it places in Squibb as its front-and-center star.
Director: Josh Margolin
Writer: Josh Margolin
Starring: June Squibb, Fred Hechinger, Richard Roundtree, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, Malcolm McDowell
Release Date: January 18, 2024 (Sundance)
Jacob Oller is Movies Editor at Paste Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter at @jacoboller.
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