Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (first performed in 1891) is a classic tale about power, control, and the suffocating banality of privilege. In Nia DaCosta’s Hedda, in select theaters on October 22nd, and premiering globally on Prime Video on October 29th, the writer/director honors the source text, adding a pulse of modern dread and heart-pounding sexual tension to the controversial drama.
The film opens with a rhythmic, percussive score from Hildur Guðnadóttir. The feverish, anxiety-laden beats set the tone for a Psychological Thriller masquerading as a period drama.
Reconceived in 1950s England, the film places Ibsen’s frustrated housewife, Hedda Gabler, in a grand estate where civility and cruelty dance in tandem (think 2023’s Saltburn meets the series The White Lotus). From the first scene (Hedda emptying rocks from her dress into a lake), the film hints at its main character’s demise, conveying a sense of unease from the word go.
The production design is outlandishly lavish. Beautiful. Impressive. On the surface, it seems newlyweds George and Hedda Tesman have it all. The enormous house is to host a party with a who’s who of society. What unfolds is a feverish bacchanalian party in a house of mirrors. The cinematography (Sean Bobbit) turns mirrors into narrative devices, refracting Hedda’s counterparts, splintering their images, and mirroring the chaos she craves in them. In this world, everything gleams and glistens…on the surface.
The film’s most radical change from the play is an apt gender-swap of Hedda’s ex-lover, Eilert Løvborg, now Dr. Eileen Lovborg (a dynamic Nina Hoss, known for many roles, including Homeland), a brilliant, alcoholic scholar whose relationship with Hedda is a forbidden romance. Set in a mid-20th-century context, this choice pumps queerness and sexual repression directly into the film’s bloodstream. When Hedda purposefully sabotages Eileen’s sobriety, forcing a relapse, it is both an act of domination and heartbreak. Their lesbian dynamic adds new color to Ibsen’s themes of jealousy and creative envy: here, Hedda is not just controlling a rival, she is punishing the mirror of her own desire.
Tessa Thompson (known for roles including 2015’s Creed and 2018’s Annihilation) as Hedda is a study in surface tension. Her accent feels labored (a vague, unplaceable Transatlantic affect), but her eyes and trademark smirk are volcanic. She plays Hedda on the nose: as a sociopath—selfish, manipulative, mean simply because she can be. It is an unflinching portrayal, and unpleasant to watch, which might be the entire point.
You do not like Hedda, and you are not supposed to. Her husband, George Tesman (pitch-perfect by Tom Bateman, who is famous for the series Demons and 2022’s Death on the Nile), is the kind of man who mistakes proximity to brilliance for brilliance itself, relying on Hedda’s charm to open every door. The only time we feel Hedda might be justified in her cruelty is in a scene later in the film when Judge Brack (Nicholas Pinnock: For Life series, Long Bright River series) assaults her, revealing a sexual and predatory relationship. This dynamic throws us a curveball: Is Brack the father of her child?
All the while, the film’s score mimics a racing pulse—tribal drumming bordering on hysteria. With Hedda at the helm (and often on the balcony), orchestrating it all, the conductor of her own undoing. The proverbial guns, ever-present in Ibsen’s play, are again characters in themselves; the key to the gun cabinet hangs overtly from a chain in Hedda’s bosom, a constant reminder of what is to come.
By the end, ambiguity reigns. Smartly, DaCosta cuts before the final gunshot that fans of the play might have been expecting, leaving open whether this Hedda dies at all, or rehearses her own demise again and again. Overall, Hedda is a lush, unsettling reimagining of Ibsen’s classic, sumptuous and vicious. Worthy of your time, Cryptic Rock gives Hedda 4 out of 5 stars.
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