by Tim Gordon
Nia DaCosta’s Hedda reimagines Henrik Ibsen’s 1891 classic for a modern audience with both reverence and defiance. It is a lush, psychologically charged portrait of repression and rebellion, anchored by a breathtaking performance from Tessa Thompson. The result is a film that vibrates with tension—between beauty and decay, between intellect and instinct, between the roles women are forced to play and the identities they ache to claim.
The story follows Hedda Gabler (Thompson), the brilliant and manipulative daughter of a general, whose marriage to the earnest yet unimaginative George Tesman (Tom Bateman) traps her in a world of genteel suffocation. Into her carefully constructed life walk Thea Clifton (Imogen Poots), Judge Brack (Nicholas Pinnock), and Eileen Lovborg (Nina Hoss), each representing the temptations and terrors of freedom. Hedda’s tragedy lies not in madness or malice, but in her inability to reconcile her sharp mind and restless soul with the rigid expectations of a patriarchal society.
DaCosta’s direction breathes modern life into Ibsen’s text without sacrificing its timeless emotional weight. The world she creates is sumptuous and suffocating at once, wrapped in silks and candlelight, yet humming with discontent. Every choice, from the ornate interiors to the gauzy natural lighting, reinforces Hedda’s imprisonment inside her own elegance. The visual design becomes psychological architecture: the walls close in as Hedda’s emotional world collapses.
What elevates Hedda beyond a mere period piece is the depth of Thompson’s performance. Over the past decade, she has become one of the most versatile and fearless actresses of her generation, moving seamlessly from the understated melancholy of Passing to the romantic idealism of Sylvie’s Love to the fierce pride of Creed. Here, she synthesizes all of those qualities into something new: a woman whose poise conceals an unrelenting ache to live freely. Her Hedda is not cold but wounded; not cruel but cornered. Every flicker of her gaze and tightening of her jaw tells a story of intellect at war with conformity. Thompson allows us to feel both the grandeur and futility of Hedda’s rebellion.
Among the supporting cast, Imogen Poots gives Thea an open-hearted sincerity that makes her both a mirror and a foil to Hedda’s cynicism. Nicholas Pinnock’s Judge Brack exudes quiet menace, a man who understands power all too well, while Nina Hoss imbues Lovborg with a tragic dignity that deepens the emotional undercurrents of the story. Together, they create a web of attraction, envy, and moral ambiguity that feels immediate and alive.
DaCosta, working from her own adaptation, understands that Hedda is not simply a story about gender but about control, the control of art, image, and destiny. Her direction is assured and painterly, with compositions that evoke the stillness of Vermeer but pulse with modern vitality. The camera lingers just long enough to catch the tremor beneath the surface, the unspoken collapse of a woman who cannot breathe in the life she has built.
The collaboration between DaCosta and Thompson continues to be one of the most fascinating creative partnerships in contemporary cinema. Like Scorsese and De Niro or Coogler and Jordan, theirs is a dialogue between vision and embodiment, between a filmmaker who constructs worlds and an actor who fills them with soul. In Hedda, their chemistry achieves something rare: a portrait of despair so finely tuned that it becomes strangely exhilarating to watch.
If the film has a flaw, it lies in its pacing. DaCosta’s fidelity to Ibsen’s dialogue occasionally bogs down the rhythm, trapping the viewer in scenes that feel too stage-bound. But even in these moments, the film’s emotional resonance never dissipates. The script may speak in the language of the past, but DaCosta’s camera translates it into a universal tongue: yearning.
Ultimately, Hedda is not just a retelling of Ibsen’s play; it is an excavation of its soul. It asks what it means to be seen yet misunderstood, to be loved yet confined, to possess brilliance yet lack freedom. It’s a story about a woman standing at the threshold of modernity, too alive for the life she has been given.
Tessa Thompson delivers a master class in restraint and revelation, crafting a Hedda who is hauntingly contemporary. Her every movement feels like an act of resistance against a world that insists she stay still. DaCosta matches her stride for stride, crafting a film that is as emotionally devastating as it is visually elegant. Together, they turn Ibsen’s masterpiece into a mirror, one that still reflects us today.
Grade: B-
