One of my favorite questions to friends when we go out to eat: would you rather eat the same great meal every time, or try something new, knowing there’s a greater chance you could eat something bad? Even if it’s great, the same thing every day sounds like torture, the same feeling I get with the movies I watch. At this point in the movie season, I’d rather watch 100 Nights of Hero than whatever period piece adaptation would come out in its place. I especially like the Charli XCX amuse bouche!
Based on a graphic novel, 100 Nights of Hero takes place on Early Earth, one with 3 moons. A woman has created the world, but her father the Birdman (Richard E. Grant) got bored, and decided to take it over…and impart all sorts of patriarchal rules upon it. Poor Cherry (Maika Monroe) is trapped in a horrible predicament: she’s ready to produce an heir for her husband Jerome (Amir El-Masry), but Jerome is uninterested in relations with his wife. On Early Earth, that’s a death sentence, and both husband and wife, and Cherry’s maid Hero (Emma Corrin) know it. To make himself feel better, Jerome enlists his friend/lothario Manfred (Nicholas Galitzine) to steward his castle while Jerome goes on business for 100 days; I guess 40 Days and 40 Nights has not made it to Early Earth yet.
For a pretty small budget, 100 Nights of Hero does a decent job planting us in a fantasy world. Restricting the story to this castle means writer/director Julia Jackman can really focus on the estate and the costumes to drive home what world Cherry, Hero, Jerome, and Manfred live it thanks to the Birdman. The choices do a great job setting the stage for the story Jackman wants to tell. The costumes pull the double purpose of showing us what type of fantasy tale we are in, and what the tone of that tale is going to be. The female costumes point out the underlying darkness and melancholy 100 Nights is going to be built upon, but the male costumes are so silly that we know there’s going to be room for humorous diversions. Jackman’s sets only reinforce that tone, as dinners are had at wonderfully elaborate dining tables, giant stained glass windows allow for people to stare out longingly and beautifully, and castle grounds allow Charli XCX to look hella seductive on a blanket with a harp, a real thing that happens here.
With the backdrop set, it’s time for Julia Jackman to adapt the graphic novel into a movie. She’s got the cool kids with her: this is effectively a love triangle between Emma Corrin, Maika Monroe, and Nicholas Galitzine. All 3 understand their roles here. Corrin’s the emotional glue, Monroe is the seduced innocent, and Galitzine as the haughty interloper. I was most impressed with Galitzine, who is really having fun with his glammed up smokeshow persona. The trio make the love triangle believable, ratcheting up the heat via edging in the best ways. The story within a story is a great way to stage a fantasy tale, letting us bounce back and forth, losing a little bit of deeper character introspection for the sake of efficient storytelling and plot mechanics. 100 Nights of Hero is less a reimagining and more broadly goes after fairy tales and how most of them are written by men, which reshape how women feel and think going forward. The movie wants to build to this big finale, but is too hampered by the tight budget to deliver the message it wants to send. Even still, the build up is worth it, because of how committed our 3 leads and Julia Jackman are to make 100 Nights of Hero mean something.
This adaptation is another push for women to take their stories back into their own hands. It helps open my eyes for sure, gleaning new insights into classics that were intended for male audiences at the time of writing. I hope this reclaiming step leads to the greater step: more female centric original fairy tales, and a general explosion of creative energy clamed down for most of human history. A billion nights of Hero!