Hedda (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

PopEntertainment
Oct 22
3 min read

Updated: Oct 30

HEDDA (2025)

Starring Tessa Thompson, Imogen Poots, Tom Bateman, Nicholas Pinnock, Nina Hoss, Kathryn Hunter, Finbar Lynch, Mirren Mack, Jamael Westman, Saffron Hocking, Finbar Lynch, Mirren Mack, Jamael Westman, Jack Barry, Michelle Crane, Sam Hoare, Stacey Gough, Mark Oosterveen, Sonya Orlov, Nicholas Bishop, Milly Paris and Jack Sherlock.

Screenplay by Nia DaCosta.

Directed by Nia DaCosta.

Distributed by Amazon MGM Studios. 107 minutes. Rated R.

Screened at the 2025 Philadelphia Film Festival.

Heinrik Ibsen’s classic play Hedda Gabler seems like an odd thing to revisit in the modern day, but here is Hedda and it’s much worse than you would imagine.

Not that Hedda really is faithful to the rather dour original source material. Even on the most basic levels – changing the story setting from late 19th century Norway to 1950s England and having all of the action take place during a grandiose party weekend which was nowhere to be found in the original play.

It plays it at such a heightened over-the-top level that it feels more like Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby or Damien Chizelle’s Babylon than it does Hedda Gabler. And, frankly, while neither of those examples are good things to aspire to, Hedda can’t even reach their overwrought heights.

It's pretty shocking that something this completely hyperactively filmed can at the same time be so fatally boring.

Which is kind of a shame, because if nothing else, Hedda looks incredible. Showing off its gilded age era with a grand setting on a gorgeous lakeside estate, beautiful furniture, large bacchanalian party scenes, beautiful actors, antique cars and wonderfully ornate costuming. The movie is visually stunning.

It’s too bad that every single character in the film is absolutely abhorrent – well, all except one character, there is an older housekeeper supporting character who is wonderfully down-to-earth while surrounded by a whole slew of elite assholes.

And worst of all, by a long distance, is Tessa Thompson’s title character. This is not necessarily Thompson’s fault, although she falls a bit too readily into her character’s melodramatic awfulness, and her accent wavers a bit throughout. Still, Hedda’s horribleness mostly comes from the script and what the film makes her do.

By contrast, Nina Hoss, who plays a lesbian professor who is targeted for ruin by Hedda because she is up for the same job as Hedda’s husband, is also a vile character. However, Hoss pulls the character off with class and passion, to the point that her professor is the most sympathetic person in the castle, well other than that housekeeper I previously mentioned.

Of course, being more sympathetic than other characters in this particular film is a very, very low bar.

They also really do nothing with the casting decision to make Hedda mixed-race, other than the odd tossed-off comments by party goers. This would undoubtedly be a much bigger deal at this place and time, and honestly, it is a psychological narrative arc that should be explored more than it is here.

Strangely, the experience of watching this film reminded me of a line from a completely different classic theatrical play, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Hedda will be released on Amazon Prime in a matter of days, so your best bet is to wait for it to get to that streaming platform and then refuse to watch it, even for free.

Jay S. Jacobs