Monday 6 November 2017

Review: Thelma

I don't know enough about Joachim Trier. However, I have enjoyed what I have seen of his work so far. My first experience was Louder Than Bombs which covered very topical subject matters, executed them pretty well and got great performances out of his strong cast.
The other was 'Oslo, August 31st’ which was very good simple and grounded story with some great performances that made it a heart-breaking viewing experience.

With Thelma, it looked like another project that was completely different to the rest. One thing I was enjoying straight away was the concept. It is the type of story that I can definitely get on board with. After that acknowledgement, I was intrigued as to how they would explore this idea. There was some cool imagery with some occasional religious metaphors taking place that I enjoyed seeing.
But as we got towards the end, I could see that there were not going to be much more opportunities left to go an more intriguing path, and before you knew, it was over.

As soon as I understood the concept, I was immediately calling it 'Carrie: The College Years' and its very similar to the 1976 supernatural horror. I saw comparisons to other films like 'Raw' in regards to the coming of age aspects and 'The Neon Demon'.

Most of the performances were fine but not exceptional except for Eili Harboe who plays the central character. Her performance alone I feel is worth the admission. I thought she committed to her character really well, especially from the physical side of her performance. The young Norwegian actor certainly carried the film and made me believe in the concept.


As mentioned before, while it had an interesting concept, for me I felt was never fully explored. They only seemed to scratch the surface. Plus, the weak ending gave me of a disappointing feeling when leaving the screening. I thought the final act was treading over old ground that was covered earlier in the film.
They never seemed to take much risk except in a few scenes including one brutal scene towards the end. But I think the ideas alone makes it enjoyable enough.  I also liked the mysterious score. It worked really well throughout and enhanced the mystery surrounding the story. However, the missed opportunities prevented this from being highly memorable.

A word of warning, this does contain pretty frenetic flashing images that may effect you if you have in the past.


Rating: 7/10

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