This Underrated Thriller is a Queer “Dark Fairy Tale” for the Modern Age
“Lesbian supernatural thrillers are the future of film,” says this Letterboxd review of Thelma (2017), one of the most underrated thrillers of the 2010s. Joachim Trier’s strange “dark fairy tale” tells the story of a shy Norwegian college student who discovers she has supernatural powers after falling in love with another girl.
Thelma is hard to pin down genre-wise. We even admitted it’s “not exactly a horror movie” in our 2017 interview with Trier. But it’s “been embraced by lovers of the genre” with its nods to Carrie (1976) and its unsettling imagery (flashing lights, snakes, bodies sinking in black water). What saves it from being just another movie about a strange girl with telekinesis is the queer love story at its center.
An 18-year-old Thelma (Eili Harboe), finally free from her hyper-religious parents, has just started university in Oslo. When she meets Anja (Kaya Wilkins, better known as Okay Kaya), the first flush of attraction triggers a seizure so violent it sends birds crashing from the sky and into the university’s windows. From then on, Thelma’s desire for Anja and her religious repression quickly manifest as supernatural chaos. But what if she’s always been this way?
Turns out, her father sensed something was wrong with her when she was just a child. But little does he know, desire—specifically queer desire—isn’t evil. And once Thelma realizes just how powerful she is, there’s no stopping what she can do.
“We’re playing around with tropes from old Norwegian fairy tales and at the same time taking a bit from Stephen King of the 80s,” Trier told Dread Central. “[Thelma is about] liberation, but at the same time, it’s a coming of age, yearning to be yourself.”
Watching Thelma learn to embrace her powers and her queerness after trying to “pray the gay away” is exactly like reading a fairy tale where the protagonist discovers only they have the strength to defeat the dragon (think: Chappell Roan’s 2024 VMAs performance). Thelma might not be horror in the traditional sense, but it’s an underrated psychological gem destined for queer cult status.
Watch this and Let the Right One In (2018) as a double feature and thank me later on Instagram/ X: @ashjenexi
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