A lot of people have dreams of making it big in Hollywood. But June Squibb spent decades working on the stage before she got her SAG card in her mid-50s in 1985 in an episode of CBS Schoolbreak Special. But it was another five years before she appeared on the Silver Screen in Woody Allen’s Alice.
And it wasn’t until the early 2000s where she got meatier roles in the critically acclaimed About Schmidt where she worked alongside Jack Nicholson and Far From Heaven. In her early 70s, most actors would’ve given up a long time earlier and gone on to something else. In 2004, she appeared in Welcome to Mooseport with Gene Hackman who was younger than her by a couple of years and he decided it was time to retire from movies.
No, it wasn’t until 2013 when she reunited with filmmaker Alexander Payne, who had directed About Schmidt, when she appeared in the quirky comedy-drama Nebraska playing the long-time wife of Bruce Dern’s Woody Grant, a ornery old cuss who believes a junk mail letter that he’s won a million dollars. Woody tries to go from Billings, Mont. to a location in Nebraska to claim his money not believing it’s a scam And as Woody’s wife, Kate, Squibb stole every scene she was in, even hiking up her dress at the gravesite of an old flame to show him what he missed out on.
Squibb got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress at 85. And since then, she’s had roles in many movies. But she’s never had the lead role until now with Thelma which could very easily be a companion movie to Nebraska, the ying to that movie’s yang to say. Squibb is Thelma Post, a 93-year-old woman who lives alone in the Los Angeles area. Her grown grandson, Daniel (Fred Hechinger), is loving and caring but he’s not too focused on his own life. And a scene of him setting up a new computer for her may seem to real to people young and old.
One day, Thelma finds herself receiving a call from someone claiming to be Daniel. But it’s an old-fashioned scam where the caller claims to be her grandson and he needs $10,000 because he’s been arrested. Thelma tries to first call Daniel’s mother, Gail (Parker Posey), her own daughter, and her son-in-law, Alan (Clark Gregg), but they don’t respond and she leaves multiple voice messages. Terrified, she gets the money out and hops in a taxi to the post office where she sends it off a few minute before Gail calls her worried about what happened.
Daniel is fine but asleep at his house. And he and his parents assure Thelma he’s fine and she’s been scammed. However, since she already sent the money, they can’t do much to retrieve it. But Thelma accidentally overhears Gail and Alan talk about how helpless she is and even considering her moving her into a retirement or assisted living home. Upset, she finds the address and sets out on getting it back. She gets Daniel to drive her to a retirement community complex where she meets an old friend, Ben (Richard Roundtree in his final movie role).
They reconnect and Thelma tries to get Ben to allow her to use his motor scooter he uses to get around. When he refuses, she tries to steal it, but Ben wants to go with her to the mailing address. And this leads them on a road trip where they bring up past issues and stop at an acquaintance house to steal her handgun. Yes, it seems quirky and outrageous like Nebraska and About Schmidt but first-time director Josh Margolin creates real-life people instead of elderly stereotypes. Footage at the end shows us he modeled Thelma on his real-life grandmother.
Thelma and Ben may not be tech savvy as Daniel, but they’re smart enough to know how to evade Daniel, Gail and Alan finding them. The irony is the younger people feel the older are in danger, but they can’t even do the right thing. Alan doesn’t want to drive fast when they notice Thelma has accidentally posted on social media her location as they have to recharge the scooter. It shows you how as a society, we sometimes treat the elderly like young children.
There’s a running joke in the movie that Thelma keeps seeing people she thinks she knows and they’re also older people. Rather than be aggravated or dismissive, the other people try to think how or where they know her from as well. It’s these little scenes that keep Thelma from becoming a one-joke movie that some other director might have made it. We care about Thelma and Ben as they’re on their journey.
And not to ruin the end, when they do find the address, it’s a post office location. What they find there leads them to a nice small role by another veteran actor Malcolm McDowell. We live in a world where people say “age is just a number” but then people get to a certain point in their life when they realize they can’t do what they use to. I find it funny that Thelma is inspired by Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible movies to go after her money. Cruise is now in his 60s doing stunts like jumping out of helicopters, hanging on to planes as they take off and climbing skyscrapers.
Parker and Gregg add their own time of white-bread middle-class normalcy to their roles. But the performance by Roundtree shows that he was more that just one bad mother who played John Shaft. Ben is the complete opposite of Shaft and shows just how talented the late Roundtree was.
But the real star is Squibb. And don’t be surprised when she gets nominated for an Oscar in a few months. John Williams is the oldest nominee for an Oscar, while Gloria Stuart was the oldest actress nominated for an Oscar. I’m sure Squibb will have them beat. This is the type of role that she has been waiting for and she does a very good job of making it one of the roles for which she’ll be most remembered.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 