Is Thelma based on a true story?
The new film stars 94-year-old June Squibb as a woman who becomes the victim of a mobile phone scam – and embarks on a dangerous quest to get her money back.
We've all heard tragic stories of vulnerable older people being taken advantage of by scammers and cheated out of their money – but there are comparatively few about pensioners who take matters into their own hands to right those wrongs.
But new film Thelma tells just that story. Written and directed by Josh Margolin, it stars veteran character actor June Squibb – making her first lead performance at the age of 94 – as the titular grandmother, who embarks on a dangerous journey on her mobility scooter to confront those responsible for taking £10,000 of her hard-earned cash.
Inspired by Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible films and aided by both her young grandson Danny (Fred Hechinger) and elderly friend Ben (played by the late Richard Roundtree), Thelma is able to successfully track down the man while regularly musing on the nature of old age and confronting her mortality.
But is the film actually based on a true story? Read on for everything you need to know.
Is Thelma based on a true story?
Yes and no. The film is loosely based on a story about Margolin's own grandmother Thelma Post, who can be seen in footage at the end of the film and is still alive at the age of 103.
Although many aspects were dramatised for the film – including much of the central character's journey and her confrontation – the real Thelma was indeed targeted by a phone scam very similar to the one we see.
"The scam call that happens in the movie is almost verbatim to the scam call she received in real life, where a pretty similar series of events unfolded," Margolin explained in an interview with Creative Screenwriting.
"She got a call, someone pretending to be me saying I was in jail and that I hit a pregnant woman with my car."
In real life, Margolin thankfully managed to intervene before any damage was done, but the incident gave him the idea for a film in which his grandmother "ventured out on her own to get it back".
So, while a lot of the events we see in the movie are fictional, the character herself is very much drawn from Margolin's real grandmother.
And, speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com, Squibb explained that the director had given her some home movies to study to help with her portrayal.
"He gave me some films that he'd made of Thelma," she explained. "They were very short, and they would be like going to the supermarket or working on the computer, just short little films that he had made with her. And that's what I saw before I started shooting the film.
"But we really... I think the script was so, so beautifully laid out and so wonderfully... you could understand, you knew who she was from the script. And that's what I used so completely."
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Thelma is now showing in UK cinemas.
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Authors
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
