Shadows on the Wall

Hedda

dir-scr Nia DaCosta
prd Nia DaCosta, Gabrielle Nadig, Tessa Thompson, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner
with Tessa Thompson, Nina Hoss, Imogen Poots, Tom Bateman, Nicholas Pinnock, Finbar Lynch, Mirren Mack, Kathryn Hunter, Saffron Hocking, Nicholas Bishop, Jamael Westman, Michelle Crane
release US/UK 24.Oct.25
25/UK Orion 1h47

TORONTO FILM FEST

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Ibsen's Hedda Gabler gets a clever 1950s twist in Nia DaCosta's vivid adaptation, which is set at a raucous party in an English country house. It's not an easy film to like, as the title character so cruelly manipulates the people she supposedly loves. While the film feels overwrought, it is also unusually compelling, asking us to identify with these awful people, even if only for a moment.

Newly married simply because it was about time, the aggressively independent Hedda (Thompson) is throwing a lavish party with her devoted husband George (Bateman) in a house they can't afford. But she's thrown when her old friend Thea (Poots) turns up, having abandoned her marriage to run off with Hedda's professor friend Eileen (Hoss). So Hedda sets out to split them up over the course of the evening, which spirals into drunken mayhem. She is then surprised when her husband's colleague Roland (Pinnock) works out what she's up to and demands his own illicit reward.

All of this is so heightened that it's essentially a fantasy, with poshly decked-out Brits charging down to the lakeside for a bonfire and spontaneous swim, while also contending with a gun-waving scholar (Lynch). Through all of this, Hedda prowls around the house with evil intent, throwing herself in between Thea and Eileen, and also conniving to orchestrate Eileen's professional disgrace. Because this is the 1950s, women are routinely underestimated, especially a woman of colour like Hedda.

Thompson plays her unapologetically as someone who has little on her mind but control and destruction. She's so villainous that we worry about anyone who comes near her orbit, so it definitely helps that Thompson subtly adds a bit of pathos. By contrast, Hoss commands our sympathy as the outrageously complex Eileen, whose journey through this narrative is a nail-biting rollercoaster ride. Hoss layers dignity, fear and love as Eileen miraculously refuses to give in to calamity and humiliation. And Poots, Bateman and Pinnock also find startling nuance in their messy characters.

While the film's archness is often overpoweringly camp (if Hedda had a moustache, she'd twirl it), it's what's happening under the surface that keeps us gripped, especially as we watch Eileen's trajectory, frightened of what might happen next. Gender-swapping this character from the original play adds a pungent thematic kick regarding both women's issues and queerness. This helps to make the running commentary about society, culture and class feel bracingly current.

themes, language, violence, sexuality 23.Oct.25

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