When director Nia DaCosta and star Tessa Thompson get together, as they have multiple times beginning with 2018’s underrated Little Woods, expect reinvention, reimagining, an attempt to mine something new. Such is the case with Hedda, a Saltburn-esque take on Henrik Ibsen’s 19th-century stageplay. Ibsen’s story has been reworked many times, some successfully and some not so much, but DaCosta finds fresh ground by creating a tempest in a teapot narrative, a swirling storm of devious machinations and sexual intrigue.
Moving the action to 1950s England, the film begins with Hedda Gabler (Thompson) being interrogated by police after a shooting. She smiles wryly before cooing that she barely has any memory of what happened, after all, “It was a party.” Flashing back to the beginning, we learn that Hedda is a General’s daughter and a wild child, but she’s settled into boring domestication with George (Tom Bateman), a soft academic who we already know could never satisfy her in any way. He’s up for a high-profile professor position, one that would help them afford the massive estate that was bought basically to keep Hedda happy. They are overstretched, to say the least. But there’s always time for a party, and Hedda sees this as an opportunity to stir things up. In fact, she has invited George’s chief rival for the job, Eileen (Nina Hoss), to the festivities.
DaCosta smartly reinvents the character of Eileen Lovborg as a woman, and the casting of Hoss is a clever move as well. Hoss played Hedda for years on the German stage, and now she gets to see the story from a completely different angle in a role created for her. Eileen is now Hedda’s ex-lover, and in this party full of stuffy male academics, the idea of women “eating out” is both taboo and titilating as Hell. Eileen is brilliant, but her reputation has been sullied by her hard-drinking and partying ways. However, she’s turned over a new leaf, quit drinking, and written a brilliant manuscript that she has brought to the party in hopes that it will help her secure the job. Hedda sees this as an opportunity to really wreck some lives because, intolerably, she is still in love with Eileen, and that is a weakness she can’t allow.
Hedda, who refuses to use her husband’s last name of Tesman, is the kind of character you love to hate. She is a spitfire, a devilish witch, a bully, a home wrecker, and yet she is brash, bold, and defiant in the face of mediocre men looking to lord their power over her. Thompson is ferocious in the role, playing Hedda as a woman torn in a million different directions by her desires, her jealousy, her race, her sexuality. Hedda is smart, too, especially at figuring out what it is that other people want and then dangling it, like a carrot, just out of reach. And then when they are at their weakest, she gives it to them or takes it away, utterly destroying them. She is a fascinatingly complex figure, one so manipulative that she dresses up Eileen’s lover, the timid Thea (Imogen Poots), in her clothes, knowing the emotional confusion it’ll cause.
While Thompson is amazing, as always, it’s Hoss who nearly steals the entire film away from her. As Eileen, she is a dominating force of nature, showing up the men with her wit, savvy, and deceptively imposing physique. She refuses to be seen as lesser to them, which makes her stunning, humiliating fall from grace all the more tragic.
I’ve always had a sweet spot for party movies, but especially those that have the chaotic energy that the best parties do. There’s so much scheming, adultery, wild dancing, skinny dipping, maze running, and attempted murder in Hedda that it can become dizzying, which is the right effect to have. If anything, the debauchery gets ratcheted up to such a high level that the finale can’t hope to measure up, no matter how many guns are introduced. DaCosta and Thompson have found a way to make this dusty old play not just relevant, but exciting and rewatchable.
Hedda opens in select theaters October 22nd, then streams to Prime Video on October 29th.
