Now that’s how you cash in! Nia DaCosta’s career so far has been being the fall person for movie machines struggling to make good movies. I was starting to wonder what she movie SHE would have the chance to make if given the opportunity. Turns out it was a…Henrik Ibsen adaptaiton? But DaCosta’s spin on Hedda shows 1) why she got those big Marvel/Jordan Peele jobs, 2) that DaCosta at her best is as good as anyone, and 3) it’s gonna be hella funny to watch her Oscar campaign while she’s getting ready to release 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, ha!
DaCosta moves the story from 1890s Norway to 1950’s England. Hedda Gabler (Tessa Thompson) is all excited to throw a giant party at her giant house in the countryside with her husband George Tesman (Tom Bateman). Part of that excitement is the chance to relive her uni glory days with her Bohemian city living friends. And the other part is because there’s a real chance famed but maligned writer Eileen Lovborg (Nina Hoss) might make an appearance, very important in George’s, and Hedda’s lives post soiree.
I like to think Nia DaCosta watched the Ibsen play and then went home and watched Saltburn, and the light bulbs went off. Hedda’s a better version of that film: building a whole movie around a mansion and one party. But Hedda isn’t some stitched together film of other people’s ideas: it’s DaCosta’s creation. The adaptation is magnificent: she confines the story to this one night unlike Ibsen’s play, but more importantly, she completely transforms the dynamics of the story through modernization. DaCosta makes her story much more messy in the best way possible. Ibsen’s base power dynamics are still there, as each character navigates and tries to take their power back from the other. On top of that, DaCosta turns up the heat the minute Eileen Lovborg shows up. This is a party of horny people, and more importantly, horny people who are extremely attracted to each other. Throw in incredible evening wear, a killer party, and lots of empty rooms to explore those feelings with words, and maybe, um, other ways, and you’ll be as captivated as I was, scene to scene. Oh and just for the hell of it, Nia elevates the movie out of its play trappings with wonderful direction, like the way Hedda gets pulled toward Eileen like a magnet when she enters the dance floor.
For this version of Hedda to work, Hedda and Eileen need to be perfectly cast. Thankfully, Nia nailed that too. Tessa Thompson also escapes her Marvel and Creed trappings and enjoys this chance to star in something more befitting her talents. She plays the character perfectly, hiding a deep anger and melancholy with outward displays of flair, style, and romance. I never knew what Thompson was going to do, scene to scene, which gave the move this energy and propulsion it needs to build up the tension as this never ending party goes on through the night. A master manipulator like that needs a muse though. Enter Nina Hoss. Hoss’s Eileen has everything Hedda wants, not a great place to be around a master manipulator power player. Hoss wears the author’s heart on her sleeve, and takes the emotional throughline of the movie about 5 minutes after she walks into frame. Watching Hedda slowly unravel Eileen is captivating to watch: a tug of war of wills and wants, sizzling every minute they are together onscreen, and carrying that energy across the party.
I wouldn’t want to be either Hedda or Eileen, but if I got invited to one of Nia DaCosta’s parties, I would for sure be having a blast! As Hedda wonderfully pointed out: the best part of a party is after the crazy parts but before the cops arrive. A tale as old as time, just ask the Superbad boys!