Film Review: “Thelma” — Surreal Adolescence

Thelma learns that she can’t escape who she is — but she can control what she does.

Thelma directed by Joachim Trier. Screening at the Brattle Theater, Cambridge, MA, through January 25.

A scene from "Thelma."

A scene from “Thelma.”

By Peg Aloi

Joachim Trier’s filmmaking career took off with his second feature, Oslo August 31st, a minimal yet dreamy film about a depressed drug addict who takes a one day break from rehab. Anders visits friends and then goes on a job interview. It gradually becomes clear that his life hinges on choices he will make on this day. The film garnered acclaim for its atmospheric, hyper-realistic tone; a downer of a topic was somehow made riveting. The film also attracted inadvertent attention because the protagonist’s name, Anders, was that of a young man of the same age who had shot and killed 80 people in Oslo that July. There was an uneasy feeling that Oslo August 31st posited an alternate trajectory for a troubled young man on the cusp of turning thirty; one Anders chose mass murder, the other self-sabotage.

Born in Denmark, raised in Norway, Trier’s second film was the critically-acclaimed Louder then Bombs (2015), an English language film that starred Gabriel Byrne and Jesse Eisenberg. It’s the story of a fractured family whose wife/mother is absent, her disappearance generating silent dysfunction in a family made up of a father and two teenage sons. With his latest film, Thelma, Trier once again examines themes of loneliness, absent nurturers, and disaffected youth. And, with characters caught up in a maelstrom of unanticipated events, every choice feels as if it might be final.

In the opening shots of Thelma, two people are seen walking in the distance across a frozen lake. Moving closer, we see it may be a father and daughter. She wears a pink hat and red jacket; he carries a hunting rifle. When the father sets his sights on a deer in the woods, the two stand quietly. We are shocked when we see him point the gun at the back of his daughter’s head. He lowers the rifle, the deer runs off, and the daughter looks forlornly at her father.

We jump forward to what seems to be the present, an overhead shot of a college campus with people walking across a huge concrete mall. Thelma (Elie Harboe) is a college student studying biology. She is beautiful, but shy and lonely. Her parents come to visit and take her to dinner; mom is quiet, seated in her wheelchair, gazing intently at her daughter. Dad (Henrik Rafaelson) speaks kindly and reassures his daughter that she’ll make some friends soon because she is a “great person.” We learn the family is staunchly Christian. That hunting excursion in the cold seems a long way off. It’s not clear where the dysfunction lies, yet.

One day, Thelma has a seizure in her lecture hall. The campus doctor, a kind woman, suggests that she be given tests that might rule out epilepsy. She asks Thelma to tell her parents, which Thelma declines to do, insisting that she’s fine. Thelma returns to her classes and a fellow student, Anja (Kaya Wilkins), asks if she’s okay. The two young women start spending time together. Anja has friends who go to clubs, drink, and smoke weed. Learning about Thelma’s Christianity and teetotaling ways, her new friends are nevertheless accepting. Thelma’s seizures threaten to return; when she tries to will them to stop, odd things happen: glass breaks, lights blink on and off. One night, in the midst of trying to calm her trembling hand (the sign that one of her seizures is coming on), she thinks about Anja, who mysteriously shows up in the courtyard below. Anja spends the night. While the two girls curl up chastely in Thelma’s narrow bed a palpable physical attraction becomes evident.

Anja’s friendship helps Thelma come out of her shell. When her parents visit again, their daughter’s newfound confidence prompts her father to remind her that she should not think that she is better than anyone else. As usual, Thelma’s mother looks on thoughtfully, almost warily, saying very little. The acting in this film is subtle and nuanced throughout; as Thelma’s mother, Ellen Dorrit Petersen sensitively portrays a woman broken by past trauma but putting on a brave face.

Anja’s mother invites the girls to a dance performance. In the dark theatre, Anja reaches for Thelma’s hand and she feels a seizure coming on. She runs into the lobby and Anja follows her. The two kiss passionately, and Thelma runs away. She ignores Anja’s text messages for a few days. Thelma decides to attend a party and has a few drinks; Anja’s friend offers her a joint. Thelma, thinking she’s high, slips into a dreamy state and has erotic thoughts about Anja.The cinematography here by Trier’s longtime collaborator Jakob Ihre is nothing short of stunning, reminiscent of the fever dream style seen intermittently in Kate and Laura Mulleavy’s recent feature debut, Woodshock, but with a more sensual, sinister tone. Trier breaks slightly with his usual hyper-realism to convey the strangeness of the adolescent mindset; in this case one beset by enhanced psychic ability. I should add that the film’s original score by Trier’s usual composer Ola Fløttum (who also scored 2014’s Force Majeure) is near perfect, providing a delicately-rendered accompaniment to the film’s subtly shifting moods.

After she snaps out of her vision, leaning back on a sofa as is she’s fallen asleep, Thelma learns she has been pranked. The cigarette was made of tobacco. Anja is annoyed with her friends for pulling this gag, and tries to comfort Thelma, but Thelma is shaken thoroughly. It seems for a moment that cannabis might have been a vehicle to help Thelma access and understand her unusual psychic talents. Her sexual imaginings leave her ashamed and confused; she tearfully calls her father for comfort. He senses something is wrong. She confesses she drank alcohol; he reacts kindly, indicating that she is an adult now and can make her own decisions. But once again he warns that she must not lose touch with who she is.

Thelma retreats into solitude again, attending classes and studying and going to swim laps in the campus pool, where another seizure triggers a particularly frightening hallucinatory episode.  She visits another medical specialist, who manages to artificially induce a seizure by tapping into painful memories (her childhood) and stressful thoughts (Anja). Thelma learns she does not have epilepsy but a psychogenic seizure disorder. The doctor also tells her that her grandmother may have suffered from a similar disorder. Thelma says her grandmother died long ago, but the doctor insists that she is alive, living in a nursing home in a nearby town. Thelma visits the home, in an effort to understand more about what’s happening to her. A nurse informs her that her grandmother often spoke of being able to “make things happen” — before she was given heavy medication.

A misunderstanding with Anja catalyzes a dire occurrence, and makes Thelma realize that she must confront her parents about occurrences in her childhood. We learn of the horrific events that transpired before that solemn hunting trip so long ago, and of the dark family secrets hidden behind the family’s conventional middle class exterior. The scenes that build towards the film’s climax push the film gently past the bounds of realism, but the fine performances (Elie Harboe is particularly dazzling) remain grounded.

The film invites comparisons to a number of spooky coming-of-age tales. Thelma’s religious upbringing and telekinetic powers resonate with Stephen King’s Carrie (1976), but Brian de Palma’s film is filled with dark humor and gruesome horror. Thelma is more a thoughtful take on the terrifying landscape of adolescence. I found myself thinking of Julia Ducornau’s recent film Raw, in which a college student is repulsed by her cannibalistic urges — but is helpless to stop them. I was also reminded of Lynne Ramsay’s excellent debut Ratcatcher (1999), in which a young boy copes with poverty and adolescence while repressing terrible guilt. Young females dealing with their burgeoning sexuality by confronting some horrifying ability or perversion provides a disturbing twist on the usual coming of age tropes. A number of these stories include nosebleeds, seen in Firestarter, Heroes, Raw, Stranger Things, as well as in Thelma. Of course, this is a symbolic image for menstruation and/or loss of virginity, major leitmotivs in Carrie and Gingersnaps. Oddly, we even see this trope in the recent gay coming-of-age story Call Me By Your Name.

In Thelma, the challenge of adolescence is not about fighting the horror within us and being repulsed by it, but about coming to terms with the situation we are born into. Thelma learns that she can’t escape who she is — but she can control what she does. With this effort, Trier is digging deeper into what looks like his customary theme: when self-acceptance becomes a form of empowerment it can lead to redemption — if one can muster the will to survive.


Peg Aloi is a former film critic for The Boston Phoenix. She taught film and TV studies for ten years at Emerson College, and currently teaches at SUNY New Paltz. Her reviews also appear regularly online for The Orlando Weekly, Cinemazine, and Diabolique. Her long-running media blog “The Witching Hour” can be found at themediawitch.com.

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