Thelma
Orchard, The | Release Date: November 10, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghDec 7, 2017
Thelma treads the line between the psychological and supernatural, gracefully at first, and then with increasing abandon. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiNov 30, 2017
Thelma is a beautiful and heartbreaking film that is an impressive addition to the coming-of-age story. A lady bird, indeed. Read full review
88
Boston GlobePeter KeoughJan 17, 2018
A moody, mannered, and lingering coming-of-age story with a Stephen King-like twist. Read full review
75
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerNov 11, 2017
The film maintains a hum of stoic, nerve-trembling anxiety that carries through to its finale. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattNov 9, 2017
Thelma doesn’t play with pig’s blood and jump scares; its dreamlike dread is subtler and stranger, and much harder to shake. Read full review
52
IGNWilliam BibbianiNov 13, 2017
Trier manages to make a movie about passion that feels almost completely detached, right to the end. It’s an approach that gives Thelma, the movie, the appearance of portent without fully exploring the fascinating themes, characters or storylines that might actually have justified that self-serious tone. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 16, 2017
Here, the Norwegian’s filmmaker’s signature brand of existential dread (always coupled with and complicated by a youthful sense of becoming), is expressed through style more than action. This isn’t a movie where all that much happens, but every decision ripples with darkness. Read full review
60
Little White LiesSophie Monks KaufmanDec 1, 2021
The visuals are compelling but something is missing. The tone is too flat and the world-building too smooth for this film to ever come fully to life. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangNov 22, 2017
You could read Thelma as a saga of Sapphic liberation, a fiery critique of religious patriarchy or perhaps yet another superhero’s traumatic origin story; it’s graceful and ambiguous enough to support each of these readings. But the more possibilities the movie seems to entertain, the more its cumulative power seems to dissipate. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 10, 2017
Thelma is both more mysterious and more accessible than his other films. The spell it casts transcends the silly plotting. It puts you in a zone all its own. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartNov 9, 2017
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. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyNov 10, 2017
Also similar to "Carrie," it works best when it stays specific, grounded in this one woman's singular experience. Read full review
63
Rolling StoneDavid FearNov 9, 2017
There's too much undeniably impressive filmmaking to dismiss Thelma; there's too much uncertain storytelling to actually recommend it. Trier undoubtedly has a great horror-movie character study in him. We can't wait to see it. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 29, 2017
Though it would be inaccurate to reduce Thelma to an extended metaphor, it’s fair to say that Trier uses the supernatural element to illustrate, in a forceful way, the power of lust, the selfishness of love, and the world-obliterating intensity of a first romance. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 16, 2017
Even if Trier doesn’t have much new to say about oppressive religious belief, childhood trauma or the terror of adolescent hormones, Thelma’s sustained, muted uneasiness gives this genre exercise sufficient gusto. Read full review
80
ScreenCrushBritt HayesSep 23, 2017
In Thelma, Trier tries his hand at making a straight-up genre film — a love story between two women cloaked in a supernatural thriller. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Trier’s knack for nuance and graceful storytelling marries beautifully to a tender drama about self-discovery spiked with psychokinesis. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineJake ColeSep 23, 2017
Thelma's transition into a paranormal thriller doesn’t complicate its initially potent character study. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Sep 16, 2017
Trier’s first foray into the fantastic—his college Carrie—gets stuck in an odd middle ground: It’s at once too metaphorically muddled and too dramatically straightforward. Read full review
58
The Film StageEthan VestbySep 16, 2017
The disappointment with this film is in how it feels like a betrayal of the skills which made him stand out amongst many of his contemporaries. Empathy is in sight with the film’s subject, but never really felt due to a certain distance. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Durga-Chew BoseNov 16, 2017
Exploring themes such as control, connection, isolation, becoming and the effects of environment on a person's sense of self, Thelma poses more questions than it answers – suggesting Trier isn't in search of what can be known. Instead, Thelma, similar to the director's other films, portrays uncertainty as the ultimate suspense. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 16, 2017
While the more enigmatic supernatural elements at times veer close to formulaic Hollywood horror tropes, the movie maintains a compelling seriousness, particularly in its consideration of the conflict between sexuality and repression. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 9, 2017
Mr. Trier’s experimenting mostly works, especially when the genre pieces dovetail with his gifts and Thelma’s story. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneNov 13, 2017
Above all, the movie relies and thrives on Harboe, who is scrutinized, in closeup, with a vigilance that even Bergman might applaud, and who has the blessed knack of seeming like a perfectly capable adult in one sequence and then, in the next, like a vulnerable child. Read full review
91
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezSep 16, 2017
Trier crafts a drama that is sublimely ambiguous, austere and also deeply sad and heartbreaking. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldNov 30, 2017
It’s chilly in Oslo, and in this movie; the better to sneak up on you quietly, like an unexpected shiver. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyNov 9, 2017
Nodding in that direction without going for broke, the film becomes an open-ended saga about rejecting family to pursue your own independent path, and keeps us wondering just how much scorched earth – or flesh, for that matter – Thelma intends to leave behind. Read full review
80
Total FilmKevin HarleyNov 9, 2017
A meditation on repressed desire with deep secrets, Thelma throbs with hypnotic intensity: it burns slow, but its magnetism holds right up to the teasing climax. Read full review
70
Vanity FairJordan HoffmanDec 9, 2017
Thelma is an example of a wonderful type of fantasy/sci-fi film, the sort of movie that both clearly deals in allegory and is still effective on its surface. But as the stranger aspects of its story tease out, the film manages not to get lost in the reeds of its own mythos. It finds strength in ellipses. Read full review
80
VarietyAndrew BarkerSep 16, 2017
At times a tad too subtle, Thelma is nonetheless an unnervingly effective slow-burn, and those with the patience for Trier’s patient accumulation of detail will find it pays off in unexpected ways. Read full review
90
Village VoiceBilge EbiriNov 9, 2017
Yes, Thelma is a horror movie — a lovely, transfixing one — but don’t look to it for cheap scares. The terror here cuts far deeper. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 28, 2017
Whether Thelma is the victim of malign forces beyond her control or the Scandinavian equivalent of horror heroine Carrie, is the central question in this superbly controlled, if derivative, variation on a familiar theme. Read full review
70
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoNov 9, 2017
Thelma doesn't exactly tell a unique story, but Joachim Trier's vision is so strong you'll barely even notice. Read full review
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