Words such as “bold” and “wavy” and “wild” will be thrown around – Really, ha already been thrown around – when it comes to Nia Dacosta “Hedda“One of the more original and exciting adaptations of a classic work in recent memory. The same words apply to the title character at filmThe center, the insecure and seemingly unscrupulous Hedda Gabler (A magnetic tessa thompson), here got stuck from the late 1900s by Henrik Ibsen’s iconic game in the 50s and did not miss a single trick along the way.
The timing is hardly the only thing that Dacosta, who also wrote the film’s script has changed here, which now imagines that Hedda is a black woman (a supportive character wonders against her “shady” skin) whose love affairs involve both men and women. The former low that pops up on her spreading (read: unreasonable) country home for a rough (read: deadly) party is, in Dacosta’s story, now a woman: Eileen Lovborg, no longer Eilert Lovborg. Again, bold and wavy and wild changes, safe, but also imaginative and enlightened. Which is to say: All this works, very well.
The film opens the morning after Hedda’s party, thrown to celebrate Hedda and her husband George Tesmans (Tom Bateman) entry into society. What the party is really Cast for is something much less mundane: when he tries to please Hedda has struggling professor George bought the couple a lush, lavish farm that they absolutely cannot afford (production designer Cara Brower’s work is fantastic and makes it easy to see why someone would go half a base to live here). They have been helped by Hedda’s long -standing family references Roland Brack (Nicholas Pinnock), who takes every opportunity to try Ravish a disgusting Hedda and clearly believed that he has guilty something.
But George hopes that Tesmans will soon be guilty of something, as they have invited university muck professor Greenwood (Finbar Lynch) to the party, and they hope to impress him so much that he will give George a creepy new job (and, you know, you money). And this party will really be magnificent, cast to Hedda’s special taste as possible – smaller flowers, more champagne – and equipped with a guest list that turns out to be more bans when the night winds. For Hedda, a woman defined by the many restrictions that hold her (family, professional, social, racical, sexual, the list continues and continues), a party is something she can really control and make her own.
More to the point: a party Guests is something she can really control and make her own. While the constantly cowed George believes that this is everything for him, Hedda has other ideas. Also on the way to Herrgården: Eileen Lovborg, Hedda’s former low, George’s current rival for the new gig, and apparently some kind of changed person. When Hedda and Eileen were wild together, Eileen’s drinking and carousing was a problem, but she has put all the evil behind her, mostly thanks to the love of Thea Clipil also Just came to the mansion for the world’s worst party.
Thea, of all people, see Hedda most clearly: when the women recalclect themselves before Eileen’s promised arrival, she says Hedda was “scary” when they first knew each other in school. It has not decreased, but Hedda’s reign will find new ways to go out (and her) under a devastating party. Upstairs, in one of the mansion’s many jewel box rooms, Hedda shows her most appreciated collection: a set of weapons surrendered to her by her later Father General Gabler with whom she toys thrown around and loans, depending on her nuances. At the bottom of Guns’ shiny box there is a shallow reserve, just big enough to hide … Yes, you see.
Since Ibsen first introduced Hedda in 1891, she has served as one of the theater’s great anti -heroes. What she refers to as her “whimsical” is something that is much richer (or wilder, bolder, make your choice): When she is so oppressed and restrained, it is only a matter of time that someone as singular as Hedda will burn. That she chooses to do it at a party? It’s just fun. Until it’s not much. It is not possible to control almost everything about her life, even though he has done nothing but safe choices (“safe choice”, your name is George Tesman), Hedda cannot hold. Conventionality does not offer the protection she expected, and so the pain doubles: she did not want her to want, and she still has nothing to show it.
When Eileen finally sweeps into the party (the big Nina Hoss is so electric in her entrance, it is almost the only moment we are distracted from Thompson, which is riveting at every moment), all bets are suddenly off. Hedda, so determined to be the mistress of her own feelings, is dropped. This is the great love of her life, and she arrives reborn, in love with someone else, with her next big book literally hidden under her arm and free from the influence of spirits and bad decisions. Hedda, of course, takes everything as a challenge.
Thorny, cursed and hell at designing everything she can to her taste, Haga stalks around the party, needle here, shoots there and takes a happy layer on where her machinations get her. Thea falls apart. Eileen falls his head into a cocktail. Hedda’s rage is so potent that it affects others seemingly out of her trade, and when the party shoots well into the night, the only question is not what will happen afterwards, but how horrible it will be.
And yet. Hedda’s magnetism is undeniable and that people would be under her slave is understandable. Dacosta and a talented team of craftsmen strengthen that idea on every turn: Sean Bobbitt’s cinematography is lush and over -saturated, Hildur Guðnadóttir’s unpredictable points fuel the party matmage with a frightening of fear and Lindsay Pugh’s costumes are overall. There is always something to look at or touch or hear in the mansion, enough that it can almost distract from the evil that Hedda commits, against both himself and others.
At one point, a guest who does not know Hedda tells her that he has heard of her past, that before she was tamed she was “as a fire.” That flame is still burning in “Hedda” (and in Hedda), but that brightness masks its true nature: destruction. But, oh, what a fun to stand back and let it shine, at least for one evening.
Rating: B+
“Hedda” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2025. Amazon MGM releases the film in selected theaters on Wednesday 22 October and then globally on Prime Video on Wednesday, October 29.
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