Hedda Review: Stunning Sets, Flat Story, Complicated Women
Director: Nia DaCosta
Cast: Tessa Thompson, Imogen Poots, Tom Bateman, Nicholas Pinnock, and Nina Hoss
My Rating: 6.4/10
The Verdict Box
Hedda is a film that dresses itself in silk and pearls and then asks you to care about the dust underneath, and I found it visually exquisite but narratively unmoored, a movie where the performances are trapped in a world that seems to exist more for itself than for the audience.
The Full Review: A Gilded Cage Without a Bird
Hedda is a world frozen in a kind of polished, oppressive stillness, where Nia DaCosta’s adaptation takes Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler and relocates it to 1950s England, flipping the original’s male lover into a woman.
Hedda (Tessa Thompson) is married to the academic George Tesman (Tom Bateman), not out of love but out of convenience and entitlement, and she inhabits her life with the cool disdain of someone who knows the rules and intends to break none of them - at least not successfully.
The film sparks briefly when Eileen Lovborg (Nina Hoss) enters, where the gender swap of the former lover feels like it should crack the air, and for a moment, it does.
I did like the conceptual boldness at play, as DaCosta seems to suggest that Hedda’s repression isn’t just personal - it’s structural, but it never quite convinces me that the shift is necessary.
It’s stylish, but it doesn’t deepen the drama as.it's more a feeling that the movie wants to point out the queer subtext and then retreat behind velvet curtains.
Performance Analysis: The Thompson/Hoss Collision
Tessa Thompson is normally great, I can’t deny that, but here, she is contained, funneled into a meticulously crafted exterior that feels like a high-fashion mannequin performing misery.
Her British accent is precise and pointed, but also isolates her from any real warmth - she is cruel, manipulative, brilliant at calculating social ruin - but the film gives us very little reason to connect with why, and that distance makes her a fascinating character to watch, but also exhausting.
Nina Hoss as Eileen is a revelation in contrast, as she inhabits her presence with a magnetic inevitability, and when she and Hedda are on screen together, it feels electric, though the staging often diminishes it, where the blocking is clinical, almost static.
Imogen Poots as Thea offers a softer counterpoint, but I didn’t feel her presence carry the narrative weight it needed, as she’s more decorative than essential, which is a shame, because the interplay between the three women could have been incendiary.
The Glow of the 50s
This movie wants you to know it was made by people who love sets, as Cara Brower’s production design is immaculate - everything is curated to perfection - and the mid-century modern estate is both a sanctuary and a trap.
I liked the way it visually mirrors Hedda’s own suffocation, though at times it feels like the sets are showing off more than the characters themselves.
Sean Bobbitt’s cinematography is also confident - the long, unblinking shots are meant to convey intimacy but occasionally land as indulgence - and the score by Hildur Guðnadóttir works at first, layered with tension and unusual textures, but after a while, I noticed it telling me to feel instead of letting the story make me feel naturally.
With that said, the combination of visual precision and musical cues creates an aesthetic so strong that it almost substitutes for narrative depth, and I can appreciate the craft, but it’s like applauding a beautifully wrapped gift that’s empty inside.
The "Traitor to Women"
Hedda is fundamentally unsympathetic, and I found myself observing her as a study in envy and boredom more than any kind of heroine, as she undermines both Eileen and Thea out of sheer spite, not necessity - and that choice is interesting, because it's rare to see a queer narrative where the protagonist is actively antagonistic toward her community instead of being redeemed.
Still, I didn’t feel invested in the cruelty, as the film is so focused on its own noirish flourishes that the tragedy of Hedda’s choices never quite lands, where it’s controlled, precise, and cold - aestheticized misery that asks for admiration without delivering emotional resonance.
The "Style over Substance" trap is present, but it’s executed with craft, even elegance, and the movie is disciplined in its miscalculation. I respect the ambition, even if I didn’t fully enjoy the result.
Ending Explained
The Manuscript: Hedda burns Eileen’s work, a symbol of intimacy and potential Hedda has deliberately denied herself - it’s nihilistic and pointed, and I thought it a clever, if harsh, visual metaphor.
The Pistols: The handing over of the antique pistol is another performance of agency, as she orchestrates Eileen’s ruin with an almost ceremonial detachment.
The Final Shot: Hedda retreats, trapped by social blackmail and personal mediocrity, where the camera watches clinically, detached, almost approving of her stubborn exit.
The Punctuation: Her suicide is filmed with an artful precision that makes the act feel inevitable but emotionally muted - it’s final, but in a strange way, I didn’t feel tragedy though, I felt the quiet completion of a contract she signed with her own boredom.
Hedda FAQ
Is it faithful to the play?
In terms of structure, yes, but in spirit, it’s almost unrecognizable, as moving the setting to 1950s England and swapping the lover’s gender reframes the story around repression, aesthetics, and performative domesticity rather than Ibsen’s original psychological tension.
Where can I watch Hedda?
It streams on Amazon Prime Video.
Why does Hedda burn the manuscript?
The manuscript is a representation of intimacy, creativity, and the emotional life Hedda refuses, and burning it is both performative and personal - a denial of what she cannot have.
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