Thelma (2017)

Having nothing to do with Thelma and Louise, this marks a truer transition to my pre-Halloween viewings than in my previous review. I knew very little going in: only that it was a recent supernatural horror, more popular on Rotten Tomatoes than on IMDb.

Norwegian college frosh Thelma has no friends at first, thanks partly to her overly controlling parents, whose Christian fervor has led her to abstain from alcohol among other things. When she first sits near attractive classmate Anja, Thelma gets the first seizure she can remember -- and subtly strange things happen nearby, such as lamps flickering and two birds smacking the window. A doctor tells her that there's more to her medical history than she ever knew. This is something more mysterious than epilepsy, no doubt triggered by stresses such as feeling what she considers forbidden desires, though she becomes more open to leaving her comfort zone. And whatever lies within her is capable of havoc, especially in her sleep, when the mind is less inhibited by ethics....

I couldn't help thinking of Stephen King's Carrie: An unpopular teen with an unusual religious upbringing accidentally causes telekinetic destruction before she even realizes she can. Nevertheless, there are key differences. For one, Thelma's powers extend further, yet she never sets half as much destruction in motion; sometimes she even exercises them for good. Also, she didn't gain her powers in puberty; they go back at least to when she was six, and only severe measures by her parents kept them in check.

It's easy to see the plot as a pro-LGBT, anti-religious treatise, but it gets more nuanced than that. A perhaps half-drunk classmate of Thelma pooh-poohs faith and champions science, yet he'd be hard pressed to find a scientist who could explain Thelma's phenomena. Her parents, for their part, never actually say anything against homosexual intercourse; instead, her dad aptly points out that she almost certainly is overriding Anja's will. Indeed, Anja has a boyfriend at first and rather suddenly starts coming on to Thelma. It's about as romantic and promising as the relationship between Oskar and Eli in Let the Right One In.

Thelma's parents don't even use loaded terms like "witchcraft" to describe her magic, at least in the English subtitles. Maybe they don't deem it inherently wicked, just super dangerous. It sure is. As soon as a flashback revealed that she used to have a baby brother, I understood all too well what had shaped the family's lives since. This does not mean that I agree with their degree of strictness, especially when they veer into abuse and seriously consider killing their daughter.

Yeah, it gets predictable in parts, but that doesn't interfere with the thrill factor. And there are still many moments I didn't see coming. The downside of the latter is that deviations from formula can lead to puzzlement over how it all fits together, if it does, as well as the filmmakers' intended message. If they're saying, "Tolerate gays or terrible things will happen," well, that's not likely to change any minds.

Thelma works best as an exploration of intense emotions, often in conflict. At its best, it's deliberately off-putting if not genuinely creepy. It certainly kept me thinking for a long time after watching.