June Squibb got an early start in musical theater—in the original Broadway cast of “Gypsy”—and spent many fruitful decades doing plays and television, but she didn’t make her first movie until she was over sixty. Her film debut—in Woody Allen’s “Alice”—was quickly followed by supporting roles in major movies: “The Age of Innocence”, “Scent of a Woman”, “In and Out”, “Meet Joe Black” and “Far From Heaven”. In Alexander Payne’s “About Schmidt” and “Nebraska”, her roles were bigger and bolder but still supporting. But this week, Squibb becomes a leading actress at ninety-four in “Thelma”, Josh Margolin’s new movie (based on his now-104-year-old grandmother), and a new era begins.
It wasn’t so long ago that scripts with female protagonists were an impossible sell in Hollywood. I should know: I wrote a couple in the 90s that were rejected as “charming”, which in film speak means “F-you”. At the time, scripts were supposed to appeal to an audience of fourteen-year-old boys—who would, on theory, bring along everyone else. Even when males older than 14—or, God forbid, women—came to the cineplex, the white men in charge of agencies and studios didn’t think an actress could “open” a film. Even Meryl Streep’s impressive list starring roles in the 80s and 90s consists of wives, ex-wives, girlfriends or love interests*. In “Out of Africa”, where she’s undoubtably the star, Streep’s Karen Blixen is saddled with a syphilitic husband (Klaus Maria Brandauer) and a commitment-shy lover (Robert Redford), neither of whom play a major role in the eponymous book. According to director/producer Sydney Pollack and screenwriter Kurt Leudtke, not even an independent-minded Danish noblewoman can farm coffee in Kenya without a man in her life, however unreliable.
So “Thelma” really does seem radical. Not only is Squibb the star of the movie but—since it’s a caper—she performs some of her own stunts. Although most of the supporting actors—Fred Hechinger as Thelma’s charming grandson, Richard Roundtree (in his last role) as her old friend and new crimefighting partner, and Malcolm McDowell as the scammer—are men, it’s Squibb who dominates every scene. Thelma, outraged to have fallen for a phone scam, will stop at nothing to get her money back, even if the quest puts her in grave danger. It’s the principle, she reasons, as she rides a stolen scooter into the sunset and toward her destiny.
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*”The River Wild” is a possible exception—an action film in which Streep, as usual a wife and mother, saves her family from violent fugitives during a white water rafting trip.