Joachim Trier’s films up to this point have focused on the fragility of life. I never found myself to be a fan of his debut film, Reprise, but Oslo August 31st and Louder Than Bombs were two of my favorite films of the last few years. Trier’s placed men in the center of his films and created something grounded, full of personality, and occasionally novelistic. Thelma just about manages to do the exact opposite of all the things previously mentioned.
Eili Harboe stars as Thelma, a young religious college student navigating her way through the world. She’s shy and can’t quite seem to make any friends. Trier sets the audience up for a supernatural coming-of-age thriller as Thelma suffers from a violent seizure as crows kill themselves flying into the glass windows of the library she’s in. It’s at this moment Trier’s trademark style is at odds with the supernatural elements of the film.
Thelma never manages to succeed in making the situation feel relateable and Trier never lets us empathize because we’re spending so much time trying to figure out what the problem is in the first place. As the audience, the film has already shown us that it is something supernatural. Either Trier wanted to stick to the realism and let things come out as they would or he wanted there to be a crescendo where the climax would come together with full emotional release. Thelma is immediately derailed by the tones of the film not melding or not choosing the specific kind of movie he wanted in the first place.
With all that being said, there are some well done set-pieces that usually all stay in the perspective of our protagonist. Harboe’s performance grounds the material and makes her situation believable, but the direction makes her feel distant. The editing in the moments showcasing Thelma‘s undefined powers taking over is stellar, and the score from Ola Flottum seems at odds with itself. Again, the movie never decides whether it wants to sound like a 90’s erotic thriller or an early 80’s John Carpenter film. With all those things considered, at the very least, Thelma is one mess of a film.
There are portions of the coming-of-age narrative work. Thelma’s sexual awakening is portrayed tastefully, but the eroticism is still present. There can be a lot to like about Thelma until you come to your senses and realize you’re watching Carrie. When I had the realization, the film fell apart in an instant. There’s little to no creativity in the story department as little dashes of family life are some of the only changes that truly distance the two works. The style of Brian De Palma is replaced with the confused tone supplied by Joachim Trier. Thelma is never as striking as Carrie but the similarities are too great to ignore.
There’s a lot going for Trier’s latest film, but it all bogs down to the pieces never coming together to form a united whole. Nothing in the film ever seems like a lot of work wasn’t put into it, but the pieces never fit together. Trier is a director that will always have my attention. Thelma isn’t a complete waste of time. It just felt like it was.