Thelma - The Movie
My family recently went to see the movie Thelma in theaters, and we loved it! If you haven’t seen the trailer, here it is: Thelma the Movie. (Additionally there is also a movie out on Netflix called Thelma the Unicorn). Now the reason we were attracted to this movie in the first place is because our own Thelma, our precious little puppy / old lady had just recently passed when we saw the trailer. She lived 13 great years, but we miss her terribly, and wish she could have lived to be 93 like the Thelma from the movie. Her full name was Thelma Louise Remington, and we named her after, of course, the title characters from Thelma & Louise.
Me and Thelma
My wife and I had just started dating at the time, and were watching classic movies we had never seen, mostly getting them for free from the library. We watched a ton of Jimmy Stewart films, including my favorite: Harvey. But it was Thelma & Louise we saw the weekend before we got Thelma. I was driving down Val Vista Rd in Gilbert on my way to hang out with Natalie when I noticed a sign that said “Puppies for sale”. (Now at this point you’re still reading this and you think, “Hey wasn’t this supposed to be a review of the movie Thelma?” I’d say no, it’s supposed to be whatever it ends up being! I just started writing, we’ll see where it goes)
I got to Natalie’s house and asked, “Do you want to go see puppies?” I wasn’t thinking we would get one, I was just thinking what girl doesn’t want to go see puppies? But she immediately fell in love with one of the puppies. A cute ball of wrinkles with a pink nose and a purple tongue. Our Thelma. Looking back we wish we would have gotten her brother as well, now I think if we ever get another dog we will get two, siblings, because why do we split up dogs from their siblings? We wouldn’t like that! Well maybe from some siblings we would. Anyway we were joking that if we would have gotten her brother what would we have called him, Thelmo? LOL
We could tell she was part Shar Pei because of all the wrinkles so we asked the guy if she was and he said, “No, no, she is 100% Golden Retriever, we gave her meat food and she got fat, then we gave her kibble and she got skinny.” Our dog was an early winner of The Biggest Loser apparently! That didn’t stop us from getting her, but there was an apartment that didn’t let us move in because she was part Shar Pei, but we learned just to call her a retriever mix and then no one cared. She was the sweetest, gentlest dog you could ever meet. And when we did her DNA test it turned out she wasn’t retriever at all, not even 1%! Her top breeds were Chow Chow, Shar Pei, and Pit Bull, all supposedly aggressive dogs. We have so many fun stories about Thelma, how she jumped out of our car to chase some ducks, how she blindside tackled my 4 year old nephew while we were all watching from the window, how she hated when we would dress her up for Halloween, and how she faithfully would roam from room to room to make sure everyone was in their beds at night, and sleep in the doorways to guard us. She was the best dog.
And so of course when we saw the trailer for Thelma, the movie, so soon after she had passed we felt we needed to see it. The title character reminded us of our Thelma, so sweet and gentle and yet she could be a bad ass if she needed to be. And the movie didn’t disappoint! Now to be fair it’s not an action movie, all the action in the movie you basically see in the trailer. But it is a sweet hearted movie about family, getting old (like really old, like all your friends dying and you deciding whether or not to move into assisted living old, but also about a 24 year old trying to finally become a man old), being a good person, and how important community is. It really was a very funny but also sentimental movie. Some of the main drama revolves around how much the grandson loves his grandma, and for me, who lived with my grandma for a few years, it was really a special movie.
One of my favorite parts, that was both hilarious but also made me cry, was when the family was looking for the grandma and everyone was shouting, “Thelma! Thelma! Where are you?” It reminded me of all the times our Thelma got out and we would be out looking for her. She loved to roam!
I highly recommend seeing it, but be ready to be confronted with the reality of life and getting old! Even our teenagers liked the movie, so go see it!
