Hedda (2025 | USA | 107 minutes | Nia DaCosta)

Nia DaCosta’s update of Henrik Ibsen’s classic 1891 play Hedda Gabler is such a frustrating watch that I found myself making excuses to finish it, including watching 29 innings of two World Series games and a Seahawks drubbing of the lowly Washington Commanders. It wasn’t bad, per se, just frustrating, because it could’ve been so much better.

I was quite fond of DaCosta’s legitimately scary Candyman update from a few years ago, and I’ve seen stage productions of Hedda Gabler a few times. I’ve always been fond of the realist masterpiece (the last time was in 2012, when the always-excellent [former] Seattle actor Marya Sea Kaminski starred at the Intiman Theatre; god, I’m old), so I felt primed to enjoy this movie. It didn’t hurt that Tessa Thompson stars, and here she’s at her most radiant, but waiting for a payoff felt like waiting for Godot.

Set in early twentieth-century England, Thompson plays Hedda, a professor’s wife who yearns for a life beyond her husband’s (Tom Bateman) means. They’ve just returned from a honeymoon that sent him into further debt, but Hedda has the audacious idea to throw a party to boost his chances of landing an endowed professorship by impressing his superiors. That might be the path of least resistance to the life she wishes for, but securing her husband that position is only the ostensible goal. Thompson flits about the party using her charm and sensuality to manipulate everyone for her own needs and desires. It’s a cat-and-mouse game that she always wins. I’m sure she could seduce me into becoming a Scientologist with little effort.

Everything goes according to plan until one of Hedda’s former lovers, Eileen Lovberg (Nina Hoss), arrives with her new wife, Thea (Imogen Poots). Eileen is a recovering alcoholic, and Hedda still harbors romantic feelings for her. Needless to say, things get complicated.

The film’s early-twentieth-century English setting is gorgeously rendered. The costume design and set decoration are fantastic, and I’d happily hand out Academy Awards to those responsible for creating an environment that looms over the entire film. Unfortunately, the script and direction are riddled with questionable decisions, starting with the opening title card that announces there will be a death somewhere. Spoiler, sorry. I found myself yelling, “Why did you do that?” at the TV during several plot twists that made little sense. (See paragraph one for the amount of sports I watched while procrastinating finishing this movie.)

Thompson, Hoss, and Poots are all excellent (though Thompson’s accent isn’t flawless), but the male characters are shallow and serve mostly as plot devices in Hedda’s psychological games.

Much has been made about Hedda’s queerness and the gender-swapping of some roles, which allows the heroine to have romantic entanglements with both male and female lovers, past and present, but is that really an innovation in 2025?

Hedda works as a vehicle for Tessa Thompson, who is stunning and seems to be having a blast in the role, but the movie itself is underwhelming. The only question I found myself asking throughout was, “Why?”

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Hedda is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.