I am racking my mind, and I feel the 93-year-old Squibb (she’s 94 now) simply is perhaps the oldest actor to play the protagonist in any film I’ve ever seen. She’s completely magnetic as Thelma — charming, loving, curious, and humorous. Squibb has been performing for greater than 70 years (she was beforehand nominated for an Academy Award for Actress in a Supporting Position in Alexander Payne’s 2013 movie “Nebraska”), however that is her first starring function, and he or she rises to satisfy the second. It is the type of efficiency the place you may’t take your eyes off her. She’s totally dialed in; each single alternative she makes as an actor appears like the precise proper one.
Whereas Tom Cruise sprints throughout rooftops and leaps throughout chasms within the “Mission: Unimaginable” films, Squibb brings the identical cussed dedication to her efficiency right here — solely Thelma’s “stunts” are way more mundane. Fortunately, Margolin does not overplay this side of the film. It isn’t shot like an motion movie, or stylized for laughs. Nick Chuba’s jazzy rating definitely remembers the music of the basic spy franchise, however the closest this movie involves a spy operation is an amusing set piece by which Richard Roundtree’s Ben serves because the Simon Pegg to Thelma’s Cruise, using her listening to support to information her by a sequence of obstacles.
That is Squibb’s film, however her co-stars aren’t any slouches, both. Posey and Gregg convey strong comedic timing, Roundtree is implausible, brimming with life and humanity, and Hechinger does so much with a considerably underwritten character, bringing a delicate tenderness to the function of Danny. His character shares the strongest bond with Thelma, and it will definitely turns into a two-pronged story of improvement for each of them; they each really feel boxed in and need to break away, and the film finally ends up being about how independence could not the easiest way to reside — group and connection are essential.
Candy, charming, and uplifting, “Thelma” is a pleasure to observe. It is the kind of film that can make you need to name your grandparents.
/Movie Score: 8 out of 10