Though the central dilemma posed by this action film should be significant for Japanese viewers—an elderly woman is scammed out of a large amount of money by a telephone caller pretending to represent her grandson, who the caller says has been arrested—the cultural distinctions may cause consternation. The freedom with which the title character, played by 94-year-old actor of the moment, June Squibb, goes about her daily routine points up a measure of independence that may feel somewhat alien to Japanese seniors, but I would venture to guess Thelma’s circumstances are invented in such a way so as to make the action prerogatives at least halfway believable. The film’s depiction of the differences between living by oneself in one’s own home and living in a facility should be taken with a grain of salt. Japanese viewers might find it fantastical. 

Director Josh Margolin is more concerned with adapting the conventional revenge narrative to the situation of the post-AARP crowd, and he demonstrates enough imagination in that regard to keep you interested without forcing you to consider how preposterous it all is. Thanks to Squibb, Thelma’s reaction to finding out she’s been had feels both correct and slightly batty—she’s the kind of old lady who would never raise her voice but will always make sure she understands what’s going on in order to make her point. So when the police tell her there’s little they can do to get her $10,000 back, she flips her wig, figuratively speaking, and gets to work trying to figure out who the fraudsters are. Margolin gets a lot of mileage out of her relationship to the slacker grandson, Daniel (Fred Hechinger), who loves his grandma and mostly relies on her for economic succor, mainly by lending her his expertise with modern digital life. He’s essentially the tech geek that every crime movie of this ilk requires, but in this case he’s serving an avenger who not only isn’t savvy with devices but is constitutionally against them (“Technology is what got us into this mess in the first place”). But because Thelma is forced to do the leg work herself, she has to improvise much more than John Wick does, and therein lies the movie’s implacable charm. Recruiting her old person’s home-bound best friend, Ben (the late Richard Roundtree—the original Shaft!), mainly for use of his motorized cart but also for emotional backup, she penetrates the criminals’ lair with savvy and moxie, and finds that the motivations for cheating old people are more complicated than they seem on the surface. But, in any event, she gets hers.

As an action movie, Thelma is, by necessity, slower and more deliberate, and it’s in that style where most of the humor is invested. It’s not just age that keeps Thelma from going ballistic (“I move from point to point”), even when she’s brandishing a firearm; but once she’s riled up no one can keep her down, not even Malcolm McDowell, who plays the heavy with a wink, a scowl, and his own batch of senior health issues. He’s the perfect foil for the old dame. 

Now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Chanter Hibiya (050-6868-5001), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Shibuya Cine Quinto (03-3477-5905).

Thelma home page in Japanese

photo (c) Universal Pictures