Thelma (2017 film)
Thelma is a 2017 Norwegian supernatural thriller drama film directed by Joachim Trier. The screenplay was written by Trier and Eskil Vogt. The film stars Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen, and Ellen Dorrit Petersen. Thelma tells the story of a sheltered young woman who discovers she has an inexplicable power that materializes when she feels desire for a female student at her university.
The film premiered at the Norwegian International Film Festival on 20 August 2017. Thelma held its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival as a Special Presentation on 9 September 2017. It premiered in the United States at Fantastic Fest on 21 September 2017, and screened at the New York Film Festival as a Main Slate selection on 6 October 2017. It premiered in the United Kingdom at the BFI London Film Festival as a Cult Gala presentation on 14 October 2017. Thelma was released in theatres in Norway on 15 September 2017.
Thelma was selected as the Norwegian entry for the Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, but did not receive the nomination.
Plot
Thelma is a lonely and repressed young woman from an ultra-religious Christian family who has lived a sheltered life under the protection of her father, Trond, and disabled mother, Unni. She struggles to make friends and soon after moving to Oslo to attend university begins to experience unexplained epileptic seizures. When she meets another student, Anja, she discovers that her feelings for Anja trigger uncontrollable psychokinetic powers.While undergoing a brain tomography test to find the cause of her seizures, she begins to think about Anja and as she focuses on her, Thelma's power is set in motion and she unconsciously and unwittingly makes Anja vanish into empty space. Distraught and confused by Anja's sudden disappearance, Thelma returns home and soon remembers that when she was a little girl she had a baby brother. Once, when feeling neglected and jealous of the attention given to her younger sibling, and wishing him to be quiet and gone, she involuntarily caused him to teleport from his crib and reappear underneath the sofa. In a final tragic incident, she caused him to disappear from his bath, and he was found trapped below the ice of a frozen lake by her father. Traumatized, Thelma's mother tried to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge; but instead the failed attempt left her disabled. Thelma had forgotten these events. Realising her utter distress, her parents tell her the truth, which is that she is somehow able to manifest whatever she deeply wants; and that she inherited the same inexplicable ability from her grandmother, who blamed herself for the disappearance of Thelma's grandfather, and was kept sedated in a psychiatric nursing home by Trond. Thelma perceives that her parents had a similar fate in mind for her.
Earlier, while visiting Anja, Thelma recalled how her father once held her hand over a lit candle until it almost burned so that she could feel what Hell's eternal fire was like. She causes the death of her father by telekinetically making him self-combust whilst out boating on the unfrozen lake. Thelma realizes that her power can also restore life when she revives a small dead bird. She begins to understand that her supernatural ability is also a gift and uses it to heal her mother, making her able to walk again. Along with the realization that she can summon her power, Thelma is able to finally control it, and brings Anja back to existence. She returns to college, now with Anja as her girlfriend in a guilt-free relationship.
Cast
- Eili Harboe as Thelma
- *Grethe Eltervåg as young Thelma
- Kaya Wilkins as Anja
- Henrik Rafaelsen as Trond
- Ellen Dorrit Petersen as Unni
Production
Principal photography began on 20 September 2016 and lasted 44 days. Locations included Oslo in Norway, and Västra Götaland, Gothenburg, Trollhättan and Kiruna in Sweden.
The film poster was released in August 2017. The key art for the U.S. was released in September 2017 in advance of the American premiere; followed by the UK in October.
Release
Thelma was released theatrically in Norway on 15 September 2017. It was released in the United Kingdom on 3 November 2017, followed by the United States on 10 November 2017.In April 2017, The Orchard acquired the North American distribution rights to the film. Distribution rights to the United Kingdom were acquired by Thunderbird Releasing in August 2017.
Critical response
, the film holds a 93% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Thelma plays with genre tropes in unexpected ways, delivering a thoughtfully twisty supernatural thriller with a lingering impact." On Metacritic, the film received a score of 74 out of 100, based on 31 leading critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". In IndieWire's annual critics poll of best films and performances, Thelma was selected a "Critics Pick" for Best Foreign Language Film.Manohla Dargis wrote in The New York Times that Thelma is "a romance, a psychological thriller, a liberation story and a whodunit ... and most satisfyingly, it plays with the female Gothic... in which women are at once the victims and agents of change", praising Joachim Trier with having "a great talent for making loneliness visceral and visible, for showing how pain can make the world disappear." In the Los Angeles Times, Justin Chang said the film was a "muted and moody supernatural chiller" that is "thoughtful and beautifully composed" with sequences "that tap into a vividly primal sense of terror."
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian described Thelma as "an uncanny accumulation of mood, an ecstasy of disquiet" and the performance by Eili Harboe as "outstandingly good". AfterEllen praised the performance by Harboe as "exhilarating, and incredibly moving", and said that "In a sea of lesbian films that are often repetitive, Thelma explores analytical territory that none other has before." David Friend of The Canadian Press said the film carries "an ominous and sinister tone that evokes the best traits of classics like 'Carrie' and 'Let the Right One In.'"
Bilge Ebiri of The Village Voice described the film's story as moving "away from the monstrous, toward compassion and understanding... prob the profound underlying sadness beneath tales of possession" and "makes vivid the protagonist’s loneliness and despair." David Ehrlich wrote in IndieWire that Thelma was a "an ominous, unnerving, and strangely powerful thriller about the most devious of human desires" and "consistently keyed in to the persuasive power of the female body."
The Verge said Thelma was a "quietly beautiful film" and "a thriller that’s scary, sad, and ultimately triumphant", with cinematography that is "visually... striking throughout". The Hollywood Reporter said it contained "intelligent, measured tone and elegant visual style" and "while the more enigmatic supernatural elements at times veer close to formulaic Hollywood horror tropes, the movie maintains a compelling seriousness, particularly in its consideration of the conflict between sexuality and repression." THR also selected Thelma as one of the best LGBT films of 2017.
Variety described the film as "an unnervingly effective slow-burn, and those with the patience for Trier’s patient accumulation of detail will find it pays off in unexpected ways." Margaret Barton-Fumo from Film Comment summarized Thelma as "a romantic film that pays close attention to physical detail", and "Surprisingly tender, proves itself a modern take on the supernatural film."