I will generally try to avoid spoilers that are not in the trailer or the first third of the film. There may be some references to events in the film but I won’t reveal any surprises or the ending. You can view the trailer at the end of this article.
Thelma is a Norwegian film directed by Joachim Trier and starring Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen and Ellen Dorrit Petersen. This is a supernatural thriller, although at times it’s easy to forget the genre. It fools the viewer into thinking this is merely a love story about a woman discovering her sexuality, finding herself attracted to another woman.
The film begins in winter with a father walking with his daughter across a frozen pond. He loads a rifle to hunt deer. A deer comes into view and he raises the rifle. With his daughter watching the deer, he slowly shifts his aim to his daughter, Thelma. He puts the rifle down without shooting. This opening is disturbing and I wanted to forget it. However, this is obviously crucial to the plot. The next scene shows the daughter, grown up, at what seems to be her first day of college.
Thelma (Eili Harboe) has parents that are extremely nosey. They call her daily to check up on her. They keep track of her class schedule. They keep tabs on whether she has made new Facebook friends. It is later revealed that her parents are Christians. But they aren’t the young Earth creationist types. Thelma seems to believe in science, and is taking multiple science classes at school. Are Christian families more unusual in Norway than the United States? The statistics I found say the opposite. Perhaps there is some cultural difference regarding official religion versus actual practicing Christians who fully believe in their faith. In some American states, her family would be quite normal, and in fact might be seen as un-Christian for not believing in a young Earth. In another Scandinavian film, We Are the Best!, the Christian girl is made of fun of for her religion. That film was made in Sweden, however.
Thelma begins to have seizures. At the same time, odd things happen. Birds fly into windows. Lights flicker. Thelma dreams of snakes crawling on her. Anja appears nearby. Anja is another woman in her class. Thelma is attracted to her. This is where the film turns into a love story about Thelma struggling with her sexuality and her religious upbringing. She tries alcohol and tobacco, and is willing to try marijuana. In a way she is rebelling, but she admits the alcohol use to her dad. For a Christian, he seems quite accepting of her experimentation.
It is easy to forget that this is a supernatural thriller and that Thelma’s father almost killed her when she was a child. Her mother is in a wheelchair. Flashbacks show she wasn’t always in a wheelchair. Thelma does not think she has epilepsy but what sort of disease would cause her to have seizures, cause lights to clicker and birds to fly to their deaths? Her Christian upbringing may cause her to blame it on possession.
Anja sometimes appears with no knowledge of how or why she came to see Thelma. When they are dancing, she suddenly disappears. Again, the lights flicker when this happens. It’s easy to wonder if Anja is real or whether her feelings toward Thelma are just in Thelma’s head. Are the repressed feelings toward Anja causing her hallucinations? Does her family suspect she is attracted to women? Does her family know she may have a disease? Why did her father consider shooting her at the beginning of the film?
Thelma is a stand-in for the viewer. She also does not know what’s going on. Everything around her may be a product of her imagination, which the viewer may also have to ponder. The only thing we knows, that she does not, was that her father once aimed a gun at her back.
An ongoing theme is water. The thin ice over the lake can easily break. Water is the giver and taker of life. It is also a symbol of baptism, as this is a Christian family. She meets Anja formally after her seizure, while swimming in a pool. There is another pool scene when Thelma has a seizure. She struggles to come to the surface of the water, which appears to be covered by tiles, trapping her.
The movie seems to shift between psychological drama, romance and horror. The twists and turns are in the genre as well as the mystery that unfolds. It can take some viewer attention to piece it together. I take notes while watching movies to review. I found myself having to pause it often, a luxury I would not have in the theater. Like the many genres, I have different interpretations upon finishing the movie. I don’t want to give anything away, however. I guess I could say that it plays with the idea of sexuality as sin in a unique way. When a child leaves the family, their overprotectiveness can actually cause the child to rebel, causing the family to hold on harder. It becomes a vicious circle, with the power struggle building up until it explodes. This film does this so slowly and subtly, that I was left surprised at the end by my own failure to remember that I was watching a supernatural thriller and not just the romantic drama it sometimes appears to be. If I must rate it, I give it a 9/10.
