It’s that time of year again: movie festival season.
If Film Twitter isn’t dispatching from Telluride, they’re reporting live from Venice. The “FOMO” is real, especially when there’s numerous projects from big-name directors playing at multiple festivals you’ll want to see immediately — Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, for instance, or Alexander Payne’s Downsizing — but don’t sleep on Thelma. Joachim Trier’s Norwegian supernatural thriller, which will have its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival before making its United States premiere at Fantastic Fest, is about a woman who falls in love with another female college student after having a violent seizure. Y’know, the stuff of Shakespeare.
Here’s the official plot summary.
Thelma, a shy young student, has just left her religious family in a small town on the west coast of Norway to study at a university in Oslo. While at the library one day, she experiences a violent, unexpected seizure. Soon after, she finds herself intensely drawn toward Anja, a beautiful young student who reciprocates Thelma’s powerful attraction. As the semester continues, Thelma becomes increasingly overwhelmed by her intense feelings for Anja — feelings she doesn’t dare acknowledge, even to herself – while at the same time experiencing even more extreme seizures. As it becomes clearer that the seizures are a symptom of inexplicable, often dangerous, supernatural abilities, Thelma is confronted with tragic secrets of her past, and the terrifying implications of her powers.
Thelma — which stars Eili Harboe, Okay Kaya, Henrik Rafaelsen, and Ellen Dorrit Petersen — opens on November 10.
