TIFF 2025: Hedda Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Following high-profile projects in Candyman (2021) and The Marvels, writer-director Nia DaCosta pivots to a more intimate, dialogue-driven story that reunites her with Little Woods collaborator Tessa Thompson in a new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s 1891 classic play Hedda Gabler. The aptly-named Hedda follows the titular character (Thompson) as she is throwing a lavish party with her newly-wed husband George (Tom Bateman). As guests are conversing and drinking, Hedda seeks to deviously manipulate many of her party guests throughout the night, including former lover Eileen Lovborg (Hoss), in a ruthlessly playful manner.

Delivering an admirable adaptation of Ibsen’s iconic play, DaCosta provides a culmination of noteworthy changes that illuminate a refreshing new take on the Hedda Gabler story. The film showcases sumptuous production and costume design to emphasize the aristocratic lifestyle that populates DaCosta’s shifted 20th century timeframe. Meanwhile, the film’s use of Sean Bobbitt’s extravagantly restless cinematography and Hildur Guðnadóttir’s uneasy score elevates Hedda’s cunning destruction throughout the party. DaCosta notably reimagines Gabler, moreover gender-swapping the character of Eileen to heap the societal conventions that faced this longstanding character throughout the play’s various adaptations.

Complimenting DaCosta’s intricately layered screenplay is Thompson’s electrifying performance, portraying Hedda with the mystifying and alluring tenacity of a powerful woman capable of navigating these societal pressures in manipulative fashion. Hedda strenuously balances her complicated relationships with her obsequious husband George, and the hubristic but susceptible Eileen, conflicted between her admiration for both and their rivalry to gain the same academic position. Driven by Thompson’s irresistibly delightful demeanor amongst these intensive social situations, Hedda becomes a mesmerizing watch as Thompson more than proves herself up to the task, shining in all of her elegant deception.

At the end of the day, with Hedda, Nia DaCosta creates an inspired adaptation of the classic Henrik Ibsen play, enriched by the subsequent nuance that occurs in its reimagining of its iconic characters. Thompson’s depiction of the titular character deepens this well-crafted illustration of challenging societal conventions through her intimately ruthless and cunning destructive behavior, making this dialogue-driven story such a thrilling sight to behold.

still courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios

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Costa Christoulas

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