You don’t have to know the 1891 play Hedda Gabler by Norwegian Henrik Ibsen to enjoy filmmaker Nia DaCostas’ new adaptation of it entitled HEDDA. But it helps. DaCosta has left most of what some have called “the female Hamlet” intact from the complex female lead to the skewering of high society to the vicious politics. What the director of LITTLE WOODS and CANDYMAN (2021) has changed up is the time-period (from 1890s Norway to 1950s England), some casting (the antagonist is gender-switched), and added elements of sex and race (lesbian and heritage now play key roles in the proceedings). It makes for an even more complicated battle of the sexes, yet most of it still plays. DaCosta knows how to dramatize, put the money on the screen, and get the best from her cast. And in Tessa Thompson, she has an actress in the legendary role who gives one of the year’s very best performances.
Hedda (Thompson) is a recently married woman, the bastard daughter of an acclaimed general with a chip on her shoulder a mile wide, and a desire for the good life to make up for the discrimination she’s always battled. Here, she’s a strong woman in a sexist world and it adds to her notoriety that she’s also bisexual and black. (Those last two points are modern updates from Ibsen’s original text, obviously.) She married George (Tom Bateman) a good man, albeit a bit on the namby-pamby side, thinking that the scholar would provide her with a quality life and access to the elites. To prove their worthiness to the one-percent, Hedda’s gotten Tom to buy a large, old mansion in the English countryside. (Later, we find out it’s not quite the purchase it’s proclaimed to be.) No matter, the couple must appear rich to convince high society of their worthiness and their big, coming out party is the fast track to do so. Now, George just needs to convince academia that he’s worthy of a full professorship at the hoity-toity college and he and Hedda can start affording their excesses.
Enter Eileen Lovberg (Nona Hoss), Hedda’s former lover and a rival of George’s for that professorship. After her own tempestuous past, Eileen has now cleaned up her naughty ways, become sober, and written a tell-all book that’s chock full of gossip and sex that has all of the upper class’ tongues wagging. Eileen has a new book on the way too, one that she’s written with her new lover Thea (Imogen Poots). It’s so fresh that there is only one copy of the manuscript and Eileen totes it to the party hoping to impress the powers that be of her worthiness of promotion. As hoary as that plot point sounds, it’s essentially the same as in Ibsen’s play. Thus, the table is set for a night of sexual jealousy, conniving for the open professorial position, and acts of sabotage throughout by Hedda.
Most of the story here remains quite loyal to Ibsen’s play, though DaCosta gives it all a much more modern spin with language and actions that are far more explicit, sexual, and yes, feminine. The male characters, including George, feel like the arm candy or secondary characters here, with even the housekeeper Bertie (the estimable Kathryn Hunter) getting a better monologue than any of the men. And there is plenty of ribald humor to amuse and sexually titillating flirtation to keep all on the edge of their seats.
DaCosta amps up other aspects of her production as well. The mansion is ginormous, furnished to the hilt, and the list of party guests would make Jay Gatsby jealous. Much of the dialogue is filled with profanity and there’s even quite a bit of time and attention paid to matters of pleasuring of women. Charting such changes from Ibsen’s original play makes for extra fun viewing for those in-the-know, but if it’s all new to the viewer, the basics of the plot will not be lost on them.
Thompson’s portrayal anchors it all with a delicious sense of evil. Yet, even at her worst, she makes her Hedda quite sympathetic or at least, understandable. Hedda remains a greatly wounded woman and a lead character who just happens to also be one of theater’s most vivid villains. Thompson even does a superb British accent and brings haute sensibility to Hedda’s every gesture. I love the way she weaves effortlessly in and out of her party guests, let alone glides as if on air towards Eileen when her ex-lover arrives at the party. It’s a nice use of the double dolly camera effect that cinematographer Sean Bobbitt employs and it adds to the cheeky wit of DaCosta’s adapted screenplay.
Bobbitt lights everything with a burnished amber glow as if everything is bathed in old money or gold. The score by Hildur Guðnadottir emphasizes all the melodrama inherent in the piece. Some of the costuming by Lindsay Pugh is gorgeous, yet some frocks are strikingly unattractive. Eileen’s party dress is simply awful and when it becomes wet after a dip in the lake, it’s hard to believe anyone wearing it wouldn’t be aware of the now transparent fabric showing off details of her décolletage. It feels a bit too obvious even for a character who’s fallen off the wagon, and occasionally DaCosta overplays such a hand. Still, no matter the hiccups, DaCosta scores fully when her attention is focused on Thompson’s shrewd portrayal of Hedda. It feels like the perfect blend of old and new and lends demonstrably to this ambitious and striking adaptation.
(HEDDA is in select theaters now, played at the Chicago International Film Festival last week, and premieres on Amazon Prime today.)
