Aahana Swrup
‘Thelma,’ the action-comedy film, presents the story of the titular 90-year-old protagonist and her wild ride undertaken in search of vengeance over a scam phone call. Thelma Post becomes the unwitting victim of an exploitative scheme where a scammer pretends to be her grandson, Daniel “Danny” Markowitz, to get a few thousand bucks out of the older woman. Consequently, once she realizes the reality of the helpless circumstances, Thelma decides she must take charge of the situation herself in order to retrieve her money. Thus begins her dangerous mission, which takes her and her friend, Ben, across town with little else but the latter’s motorscooter and their wits by their side.
Ben’s introduction to the narrative arrives in the halls of Bellwood Village, an old-age home, where Thelma’s unsupervised adventure takes off. As the place becomes the home base for the latter’s family to begin their investigation into her sudden disappearance, the establishment’s real-life connection comes under questioning in this true-story-inspired tale.
Bellwood Village: A Fictionalized Nursing Home
Despite the real-life story behind the premise of ‘Thelma,’ the film’s narrative post-scam remains a work of fiction imagined by the director and writer, Josh Margolin. The filmmaker based the story around an incident that happened to his actual grandmother, Thelma Post, where she almost fell victim to a phone scam identical to the one recreated in the film. Since on-screen Thelma’s antics in search of her scammers are mostly fabricated, the storyline’s details also become fictional. For the same reason, even though Bellwood Village or some variation of the name remains common for businesses across industries, the film’s depiction of the nursing home holds no basis in a real-life establishment.
In the film, Bellwood Village arrives as an inverted reality to Thelma’s regular life, where she lives in a condo, enjoying her relative independence with her grandson, Danny. Comparatively, the folks at Bellwood Village have professional nurses and workers looking after them, ensuring the quality of their lives. Consequently, the establishment’s idea—perpetuated by Ben— remains in opposition to Thelma’s characterization as an independence-seeking individual. As a result, the duo’s misadventure together is able to bring satisfactory character development for the protagonist.
“Ben is embracing, and maybe almost hiding, in these comforts by not engaging with the world,” Margolin shared in a conversation with Creative Screenwriting about the film. “Thelma is the opposite side of the coin, where she’s so unwilling to accept any of those support systems and pretty much doing it on her own. But that has its own failings because maybe if she was living the life that Richard [Roundtree’s character, Ben] was living, she wouldn’t have fallen for the scam because she would have this community of people around her.”
Thus, Bellwood’s narrative purpose within the film remains to provide context for Ben’s character to ignite the transitional arc in Thelma’s character. Similarly, it also accentuates Ben’s character by imposing some restrictions on him to make space for his own evolving journey throughout the story. Consequently, the Bellwood Village old-age home remains an instrumental element in the film. Nonetheless, outside of the story, it holds no basis in real life.
Read More: Thelma: Is Daniel Markowitz Based on a Real Person? Where is He Now?
