THELMA (Joachim Trier). 116 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (November 17). See listing. Rating: NNN
After his all-star American family drama Louder Than Bombs, Norwegian writer/director Joachim Trier is back in Oslo with a project that’s smaller and more unconventional. Thelma is the story of a young woman (Eili Harboe) whose attraction to a classmate (Okay Kaya) seems to unleash powerful psychokinetic abilities.
That’s a hell of a starting point, and Trier tells his story with exacting tonal control, refusing to tip over into the histrionics of Firestarter or the high style of Brian de Palma’s Carrie.
But he’s so insistent on a muted, realistic approach that he winds up smothering the drama watching Harboe’s protagonist figure out her abilities, and how they’re tied to her desires and her family history, becomes strangely uninvolving.
It’s paradoxical, I know, but the more Trier reveals, the less interesting his movie becomes.
