Movie Review

Lovable movie Thelma shows perils of old people using technology

Richard Roundtree and June Squibb in Thelma.

Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Anyone with older parents or grandparents in the 21st century has almost certainly gone through the ~~frustrating~~ experience of trying to teach or explain new technology to them. The technological divide is real, and only seems to get worse with each passing year. The new film Thelma hilariously takes on that scenario with a story that’s alternately sweet and exciting.

As the film begins, the 93-year-old Thelma (June Squibb) is having her grandson Danny (Fred Hechinger) help her scroll through her e-mail box to find a video of her late husband. Although Thelma is still with it mentally, the challenges of technology are a bit beyond her skillset. This becomes even more apparent when a person purporting to be Danny calls and tells her he’s in jail, and needs $10,000 to get out. She immediately sends the cash, only to soon discover that she’s been scammed.

With the police unable to help her in any real way, and her family – Danny, daughter Gail (Parker Posey), and son-in-law Alan (Clark Gregg) – concerned more with her cognitive ability than her money, Thelma ropes in her friend Ben (Richard Roundtree) and his motorized scooter to track down the scammers on the other side of town. The ensuing pursuit is simultaneously the slowest one ever recorded on film and relatively thrilling.

Writer/director Josh Margolin, who was inspired to make the film by his own grandmother (stay for the credits for a sweet scene of the real Thelma), has a deft touch with the slight-yet-fulfilling story. Plenty of fun is made of Thelma’s physical limitations and her difficulty grasping knowledge about computers, but it’s done in a respectful way that never mocks her for what she can’t do. The humor comes from not just her technological issues, but also Danny patiently guiding her through increasingly fraught scenarios.

The character of Thelma is set up as one who’s almost impossible not to like, starting with the delightful bond she shares with Danny. She’s very strong-willed, something that Gail, Alan, and Ben see up close, but she’s also so charming that none of them can stay mad at her for long. One of the film’s funniest throughlines is her asking multiple people if she knows them, a sign of an aging mind that turns into a crucial plot point in the final act.

What’s especially remarkable is that Margolin manages to maintain a light mood even through the film’s heavier moments. Thelma and Ben stop at the house of their friend Mona (Bunny Levine), who lives alone despite clearly being in the depths of dementia. Margolin somehow plays the scene both for laughs and heartbreak, a threading of the needle he does on multiple occasions to keep the story humming.

The 95-year-old Squibb, who’s experienced one of the busiest times in her career after being nominated for an Oscar for 2013’s Nebraska, is a joy to watch in every frame of the film she occupies. She’s the epitome of the kindly grandmother, but the spirit she displays makes her determined character highly believable. The presence of Posey, Gregg, and Hechinger elevates the relatively small number of scenes they’re in, and Roundtree is showcased in a great way in what would turn out to be his final film role.

There have been a number of movies pairing old actors and trying to mine their ages for laughs in recent years, but none of them have the wit and charm that Thelma does. Margolin turned his love for his grandmother into a film that honors her, and also gives Squibb, Roundtree, and others the opportunity to show that age is just a number when it comes to their ability to entertain the masses.

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Thelma is now playing in theaters.

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Movie Review

Korean film No Other Choice uses dark comedy to tell deeper story

Photo courtesy of Neon

Lee Byung-hun in No Other Choice.

When Parasite won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2020, it signaled a shift in how international feature films were viewed not only by Academy voters, but also American filmgoers, who made it the fifth-highest grossing non-English language film of all time. Extra attention has been paid to other international films in the intervening years, including the new South Korean film, No Other Choice.

Starring Lee Byung-hun of Squid Game fame, the dark comedy chronicles the increasingly desperate actions of Man-su, a middle manager at a paper factory who is laid off due to automation. After months of trying to find a job at another paper company, he finally finds a good prospect only to learn that several other men may be better candidates. Man-su decides that the only solution is to eliminate the competition.

The only problem is Man-su is a bit of a coward; an early plan at standing up to his company in the face of the lay-offs meets an anticlimactic end. His wishy-washy ways seem to permeate his life, from putting off treatment on a painful tooth to not communicating with his more willful wife to actually going through with his vengeful ideas. He bumbles his way through every aspect of his life, virtually daring anyone to call him out on his poor decision-making.

Written and directed by Park Chan-wook, and co-written by Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar, and Jahye Lee, the film initially seems to be another approach toward telling the class division story that’s at the center of Parasite and Squid Game. And it is that to a degree, as those in charge of the paper companies and the hiring committees are either indifferent or unsympathetic to the plight of those who have been forced out of work.

But the more we see of Man-su, the more it becomes clear that his is a story all its own, one where a man claims there is “no other choice” when in fact there are plenty of other options. The men in the film in general don’t come across well, with many of them reacting to stress by turning into whiners who believe the world is out to get them. Some situations turn violent as the film goes along, events that most of the time could have been avoided if the people involved actually took the time to think things through.

The film features a somewhat confusing story made even more puzzling if you don’t speak Korean. On first viewing, it’s initially unclear why Man-su is doing what he’s doing, or why he’s going after certain people in particular. The plot becomes more understandable as the film progresses, but Chan-wook includes several side plots that muddle things further even as they broaden certain characters. There are also a couple of visual text jokes that can easily be missed if you don’t know where to look.

Byung-hun is great as a man who can’t seem to get out of his own way. The role is almost in direct contrast to the one he played on Squid Game, making it easy to see how well he can adapt to different stories. Son Ye-jin as Man-su’s wife Miri and Lee Sung-min as Bummo, one of Man-su’s intended victims, are also highly engaging.

Like any film not in English, No Other Choice requires viewers to pay strict attention to the screen to get full enjoyment of the actors and their dialogue. While it doesn’t hit as hard as a comedy because of this factor, it’s still a greatly entertaining film whose underlying message makes it become a little deeper.

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No Other Choice is now playing in theaters.

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