Admittedly, it can't quite hold a candle to William Shakespeare. But with plays like “Nora or: A Doll's House”, “Ghosts”, “An Enemy of the People” and “The Wild Duck”, Henrik Ibsen takes second place as the most frequently performed playwright on theater stages worldwide. No wonder, after all, social pressure of expectations and the self-determination of women are timeless themes, which the Norwegian probably highlighted most clearly in his play “Hedda Gabler”, which premiered in Munich in 1891 and has since been made into a film over a dozen times.
Nevertheless, the simply titled “Hedda” reinterpretation by filmmaker Nia DaCosta (“The Marvels”), who wrote the title role for her companion and friend Tessa Thompson (“Creed III: Rocky’s Legacy”) in 2018, offers a certain added value through some progressive modernizations of the classic piece. She shifts the action from Norway at the end of the 19th century to Great Britain in the 1950s and quickly turns the title character's previous love interest into a woman. With her drama, which is sometimes a bit dialogue-heavy, DaCosta also manages to create an apt portrait of morals through lavish furnishings, in which the strong actresses in particular – in addition to Tessa Thompson, especially Nina Hoss (“Cicadas”) – are in top form.
Hedda (Tessa Thompson) throws a lavish party to boost her husband's academic career – but things don't go according to plan…
The cunning Hedda (Tessa Thompson) and her loveless husband George Tesman (Tom Bateman) live beyond their means in a large country estate. In order to consolidate himself financially, Hedda throws a party for the social elite so that George can get closer to getting the professorship he wants in conversation with his superior, Professor Greenwood (Finbar Lynch).
The dignified celebration goes according to plan until the dry alcoholic Eileen Lovborg (Nina Hoss) shows up with her inexperienced companion Thea (Imogen Poots). The engaging philologist, with whom Hedda once had a passionate affair, appears to be a serious competitor to George's academic career plans with her new, presumably brilliant manuscript in her luggage. But Hedda quickly develops a plan to render Lovborg harmless – even though old feelings are boiling up at the same time…
Old meets new
In an interview, Nia DaCosta emphasized that she consciously allowed old and new to collide when designing the interior of the large mansion: Stiff antique furniture was contrasted by decorator Cara Brauer with Art Deco elements or cubist paintings on the wall. This contradiction also continues in the character constellations, through which the film takes pleasure in reckoning with the strict and mendacious sexual morals of the 1950s – and which also provide fuel for things that go beyond Hedda's past lesbian affair.
So Tabitha (Mirren Mack), the very young wife of the elderly Greenwood, is having fun in the garden while the tipsy Lovborg's all-male colleagues in the salon literally hang on her every word as long as she flirtatiously reports on disreputable sexual obsessions such as a foot odor fetish in her new manuscript. Even if “Hedda”, with its setting of a remote mansion, is less daring compared to “Saltburn” (also shown on Prime Video): both the manipulative Hedda, who immediately analyzes the weaknesses of the other guests and coldly exploits them, and the career-conscious Lovborg, but increasingly losing her composure, are two strong and modern female characters, Tessa's Thompson and Nina Hoss are engagingly embodied.
Hedda once had a passionate affair with Eileen Lovborg (Nina Hoss, center) – now the old feelings are boiling up again.
Although the many dialogue passages make the sometimes chamber play-like scenario a bit tough, DaCosta strives for verve in her production. On the soundtrack composed by Oscar winner Hildur Guðnadóttir (“Joker”), virtuoso drum passages tirelessly drive the increasingly raucous party forward, which, together with the golden yellow look of the images from cameraman Sean Bobbitt (who already photographed “The Marvels”), is reminiscent of the orgiastic party scenario “Babylon – Rush of Ecstasy” is remembered.
However, as good as the reinterpretation of Henrik Ibsen's original was overall, two of DaCosta's changes are absolutely not worth it. The preceding questioning by the police in a death case is probably intended to suggest crime thriller vibes, which are never redeemed and so fall completely flat – and the new ending causes a shrug of the shoulders by omitting a crucial, pointed element of the drama.
Conclusion: By shifting to the 1950s and a lesbian love affair, “Hedda” actually wrests new aspects from Henrik Ibsen's classic drama. However, the beginning and end are completely wrong.