“What spirit.” What spirit indeed. 

Thelma is a 93 year old grandmother to Daniel (Fred Hechinger-The White Lotus) and mother and step-mother respectively to Gail (Parker Posey-Dazed & Confused) and Alan (Clark Gregg-the Marvel films).
When she gets unwittingly scammed on the telephone by someone pretending to be her grandson, she resolves to find the culprit and retrieve her stolen money. Along the way, she enlists the help of her old friend, Ben played by the late legend, Richard Roundtree and his motorised scooter and they go after the scammers.

It looks to be no fun getting old. You forget a couple of things and before you know it, your kids are trying to ship you off to an old people’s home.
You make a few mis-steps making the kind of errors we make at all ages but when you get over a certain hill age-wise you are suddenly ‘losing your mind’. It sucks. Thelma is determined to regain some sense of independence and freedom.

Thelma is based on the events in the life of director, Josh Margolin’s grand-mother. He was inspired to write a film to celebrate her “grit and tenacity” and to “explore her fight for what’s left of her autonomy” and decided to make a twist on the “one last job” trope and make an action film about his nan, at times in the style of Mission: Impossible or Ocean’s Eleven.

Parker Posey is her usual excellent self, delivering another quirky off-key performance as a worrying daughter Gail, Clark Gregg plays a by-the-book son-in-law Alan and Fred Hechinger is the charming, caring and loving grandson, Daniel.

Other support comes from the mighty Richard Roundtree in the last performance before his death in October 2023, here he plays Thelma’s old friend and accomplice, Ben and is fantastic as is Malcolm McDowell here playing Harvey, who is always a joy to watch.

This is a heart-warming action heist film about ageing, the love and concern of your family and coping without your lifelong partner by your side.
Take your nan, your Mum, in fact take your whole family.
Highly entertaining.