THELMA: JUNE SQUIBB RULES
I don’t like movies that portray senior citizens as cute; that’s a pitfall for any film that depicts older people in a lighthearted vein. Josh Margolin dances around it rather well in Thelma, a film inspired by his real-life grandmother who is now 103. He has had the good fortune to land 93-year-old June Squibb (whom you may remember from Alexander Payne’s Nebraska) to take the leading role in this modest but satisfying movie. Squibb, like the character she plays, is remarkably self-reliant and approaches the role without a trace of sentimentality. That’s one of Thelma’s major virtues. Margolin set out to make a parody of an action film with elderly people in the leading roles. Squibb’s partner in crime, so to speak, is none other than Richard…