Keswick Film Club - Thelma

Synopsis

On the surface, like 'Call Me by Your Name', this is a film about teenage first love, but there the similarity ends. This love affair has very different consequences. Thelma arrives at a new college where she knows no-one. Soon after her meeting with Anja, a fellow student, Thelma starts to have fits. The tests she undergoes shows these as 'psychogenic non-epileptic seizures', which the doctor tell her are a physical reaction to a mental suppression. What is she suppressing and what brought it on now? It soon turns out that her parents may have something to do with causing this and that Anja may be the reason it is coming out now; Thelma is falling in love…

Merging Sci-fi and 'art house horror', we see Thelma's fits begin to cause involuntary damage to her surroundings; "Thelma is like 'Carrie' remade by Ingmar Bergman", as David Edelstein says in the New York Magazine. In case that puts you off more than it encourages, Sarah Stewart in the New York Post tells us "With its gray skies, moody ambience and ominous orchestral score, 'Thelma' fits the cliché about Scandinavian entertainment being dark as hell — in the best way. It's also gorgeous". Bring it on!