I want to put one name in your head when you think of Best Actress, June Squibb. I’ve wanted to work her into one of my columns since I saw Thelma a few months ago. This way is best, though, because working it into one of those columns would have been to deny the film’s brilliance and Squibb’s truly spectacular performance. So, unlike all the others, this column’s an actual “for your consideration” post.
If you don’t know her, you absolutely should. June Squibb began her career on the stage. She has worked consistently as an actress since 1948. Her first screen credit was in 1985, and her first feature film was in 1990 when she appeared in Alice. Since the early ’90s, she’s popped up in film and television, giving a wide range of character performances. It was in 2013’s Nebraska at the tender age of 84 that she broke out of the background and received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her fierce and feisty performance. After that, she got bigger parts and acted on screen more frequently.
At 93, Squibb has turned in a performance for the ages. In Thelma, she plays a woman who maintains her independence despite her family wanting her to move into an assisted living facility. It’s at that point she is scammed over the telephone. She gives the scammers several thousand dollars, thinking it’s for her beloved grandson. Instead of wallowing when she realizes her mistake, Thelma takes it upon herself to get her money back by any means necessary.
Thelma is a very funny movie, thanks to Squibb’s impeccable timing. She understands the pause between phrases and that selling a mistaken word or name isn’t to emphasize the mistake but to keep going in the sentence because you have the confidence you’re right. She can take something so banal as walking up to a person to try and figure out where you might remember them from and turn it into a believable and achingly funny bit.
She’s still a terrifically physical actress as well. She did most of her own stunts for the film. Many of them look very harrowing, especially when you think of the fragility of the aging body. In the stunts and just in her movement, she uses space well. As a short person, she commands the screen. As a person who doesn’t move fast, she gets where she’s going deliberately. She makes riding on a mobility scooter as exciting as if she mounted a chopper to roar off into the sunset.
As we’ve seen before, the Academy often ignores many comedic performances, but Thelma has so much pathos to it that Squibb can stretch her well-toned dramatic muscles. Squibb gives a heartbreaking speech near the end of the film that’s about how terrible it is to age and to be suddenly infantilized with an adult brain and experience. She has moments of doubt and triumph that play so well across her features. She makes you feel a deep empathy for her and her situation. It isn’t a clucking of tongues at the “poor, old woman” but a genuine realization that this could happen to us and is happening to people.
Thelma needs to be her own savior. She needs to prove that she isn’t someone who is prey. In that mold, Thelma becomes an incredible action hero. She thinks out her plan, gathers her crew, and confronts the bad guys. June Squibb understands that this is a comedy, but she gets serious about revenge and is believable as the hero we need. Her steely grit comes through in all of Thelma’s intense action scenes.
June Squibb’s performance in Thelma runs the gamut. She’s hilarious, charming, affecting, effective, and daring. Even in this world of people living longer and staying vibrant longer, it’s rare for actresses beyond the age of 60 to elicit any kind of notice or be given the opportunity to star in films that have as much depth of character as Thelma. Squibb turns in a spectacular performance in a terrific film. I’m hoping Thelma and Squibb will be on everyone’s lips come nomination morning.