Thelma

Thelma is starting university in Oslo. She is from a strict, religious, rural family. So this is a culture shock. Though having an epileptic-style fit when a pretty girl sits next to her in the crowded library is an even bigger shock. The doctor who treats her is pretty sure it isn't an epileptic fit, suggesting psychogenic seizures. No-one notices the simultaneous bird strikes on the windows.

The contrast between the clean, modern Scandinavian university, the student world of Facebook and iPhones and the unnatural events make them more startling. These students even find the idea of fellow students who believe in God difficult to process. They expect things to be rational.

Thelma is a quiet, reserved girl, trying to live up to her parents' expectations and her religious upbringing, while also trying to fit in to student life. Underneath that reserved exterior there are alot of emotions wrangling for control: confusion, fear, lust, guilt. The more she tries be unnoticed the more she attracts attention to herself. It's interesting to contrast the timid Thelma with the much brasher and younger Mia in Blue My Mind though both girls are physically similar; pale, slim with long hair, placid expressions and perfect skin.

Thelma evolves from being the victim of her fits to being in control and in the penultimate scene, she strides from her family home in triumph.

There is enough ambiguity in the film to view what happens as either supernatural with Themla's telekinetic powers being successfully repressed during most of her childhood and resurfacing at university or as Thelma's imagination, dreams and unreliable guilt-ridden childhood memories.

Equally the final scene, which on the face of it feels like a cop-out in this otherwise dark, sinister Scandinavian movie, could also be interpreted in a couple of more sinister ways.

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Ian's rating 4/5