Movie Review: Tessa Thompson and Nina Hoss are on fire in Nia DaCosta’s ‘Hedda’

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Hedda Gabler, one of the theater’s great schemers, is transported to 1950s England in Nia DaCosta’s deliriously fun, intelligent and impassioned spin on the classic Henrik Ibsen drama. One needn’t know anything about Ibsen’s 1890 play to enjoy “Hedda.” Like “Clueless” and “Bridget Jones’ Diary” before it, “Hedda,” in theaters Friday, is a film that works entirely on its own terms. It might even inspire some curiosity about its source material.

Vibrant and lush with a fiery engine under its hood, “Hedda” unfolds over the course of an increasingly debaucherous martini-fueled party hosted by Hedda ( Tessa Thompson ) and her prim academic husband, George Tesman (Tom Bateman), at their opulent country estate. Lives are destroyed, guns are pulled, promotions are promised, hearts are broken and behind it all is Hedda pulling the strings with deliberate, gleeful menace.

Hedda is, after all, the most dangerous type of person: Brilliant and “catastrophically bored,” as observed by a pivotal character. On the surface, the gathering is a celebration of Hedda and George’s return after a six-month honeymoon, but Hedda has more than small talk on her mind. She needs to ensure her husband secures a promotion to get them out of debt — but her plan takes on a heightened maliciousness with the entrance of Eileen Lovborg, who is not only vying for the same spot as George, but happens to be Hedda’s former lover. Eileen (a transcendent Nina Hoss ) is a top academic mind who managed to break into an impenetrable boys’ club but had fallen out of esteem after one too many embarrassing drunken antics. Now, Hedda is devastated to learn that Eileen is sober, in a new relationship (with Imogen Poots ' Thea) and is putting the finishing touches on a manuscript that is sure to be culture changing. Simply put, Eileen deserves the post over George, which even he seems to understand, but for Hedda, that is simply not going to do.

Working with cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, DaCosta’s film is meticulously designed — stately and elegant with a point of view that makes you feel like you too are in this party, whiplashing from the bar to the behind closed doors chats with Hedda as your guide. Thompson’s Hedda, a whip-smart charmer with a wicked glint in her eye, is at best minimally empathetic, but you can understand why so many are under her spell. It’s not even that she’s the smartest person in the room — that title belongs to Eileen — but she’s bored and resentful that she is living a lie and lets her subtle sociopathic impulses guide her, perhaps learned from her general father. And it’s all quite fun and horrifying to watch transpire. She’s a perfect antihero.

On the other side of things is Eileen, a bit older and wise enough to have known long ago that Hedda is basically bad news. Unlike Hedda, she’s chosen to be her true self in public, and in doing so has broken down barriers (at least for herself). And Hoss, a great German actor who is underappreciated in America, was an utterly inspired choice to be the object of Hedda’s desire, and wrath. It is devastating to watch Eileen lose her grip simply because she’s naive enough to think that Hedda is worth listening to. But Hoss doesn’t resort to cliches to illustrate this descent — she’s far too intelligent for that. Instead, it’s a subtle, affecting portrait of relapse, punctured by a wildly cruel embarrassment that is brilliantly staged and executed. The film understandably loses much of its steam without Hoss holding the screen, but by then it’s nearly over anyway.

Don’t let “Hedda’s” quick jump to streaming, or the very misguided comparisons to the far inferior “Saltburn” scare you off. For mysterious reasons it will be on Prime Video a mere week after its theatrical debut. Still, one imagines that it will be an enjoyable experience wherever you happen to catch it. At least at home, it’s probably easier to secure a decent martini for the show.

“Hedda,” an Amazon MGM release in theaters Friday and streaming on Prime Video on Oct. 29, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “sexual content, brief nudity, language and drug use.” Running time: 107 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.