Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 98 minutes
Release Date: June 21st, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
Director(s): Josh Margolin
Writer(s): Josh Margolin

I think I know her!

Thelma Post (June Squibb) isn’t ready to relinquish her autonomy yet. Her daughter (Parker Posey’s Gail) and son-in-law (Clark Gregg’s Alan) would love to get her into an assisted living center so they don’t have to worry, but her grandson Daniel (Fred Hechinger) refuses to let them force the issue. Yes, Thelma is over ninety years old and only has about three friends left (despite thinking she knows every senior citizen she passes on the street), but she remains spry enough to walk to the post office if necessary. She’s even learned how to use the scroll bar on her computer.

Inspired by writer/director Josh Margolin’s own grandmother (who we get to see via home video footage as a mid-credit sequence), Thelma looks to show us just how independent this nonagenarian truly is once she falls victim to a scam. Thinking that Daniel was calling from jail, she follows the instructions given to her on the phone and mails ten thousand dollars cash to a PO Box in Van Nuys. Devastated by what happened on its own, hearing Gail and Alan use the flub as a reason to finally move her from her home becomes the kick-in-the-pants she needs to reclaim what’s hers … no matter the cost.

What follows isn’t necessarily the action thriller you might be expecting, but Margolin does a wonderful job spoofing those expectations to deliver the sort of action thriller a ninety-four-year-old actor can handle. We’re talking pulse-pounding covert maneuvering through a maze of fallen lamps in a lamp store. The death-defying evasion tactics of the dreaded pop-up advertisement. And, of course, the uncertain mortal peril of falling without the ability to get back up. Margolin and Squibb’s spin on well-worn genre tropes proves so wholesome that they were able to get away with a PG-13 rating despite three f-bombs. You cannot keep this granny down.

Alongside Thelma’s central adventure (helped by the late Richard Roundtree as her old friend Ben) to take back what’s hers from Malcolm McDowell’s “villainous” Harvey is also a sort of twenty-something coming-of-age for Daniel. While she’s scooting across mattresses to steal firearms, he’s falling apart. Thelma is ready to get herself hurt to prove she’s still in charge of her faculties as Daniel is letting the malaise of a quarter-life crisis stunt his capacity to grow. In many ways, this experience is giving him the chance to learn what Ben and Thelma didn’t until too late: that sooner or later you must take care of yourself. Just don’t forget to also ask for help along the way.

Both Thelma and Daniel being on their own islands allows Posey and Gregg to have fun as overbearing parents and children. It leads to dual chases as Thelma looks for the money while they look for her around many of the same places so that supporting players like Starey Gary (David Giuliani) and Rochelle (Nicole Byer) and Colin (Quinn Beswick) can create a bridge with one-offs like poor Mona (Bunny Levine) more pointedly getting at the themes of mortality and independence swirling outside the familial anxiety. Add a couple good hearing aid gags and it’s impossible not to endear yourself to the shenanigans. As Daniel often says about Thelma, “She’s a tough old cookie.” He’s not wrong.

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Richard Roundtree and June Squibb in THELMA; courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.