HEDDA

There are parties that you just know will end badly. But you wouldn’t miss them for the world. Hedda, a vibrant update/re-telling of Ibsen’s classic Hedda Gabler by director Nia DaCosta (Candyman), uses such a party as its centerpiece. Newly wed and deeply dissatisfied, thrill-seeking Hedda (Tessa Thompson) encourages her weak husband to throw a party they can’t afford to help him get a professorship that will ease their financial problems. One of the attendees is none other than Hedda’s former flame, Eileen Lovborg (VTIFF favorite Nina Hoss; it may go without saying that in Ibsen’s original play, Lovborg was a man). Sparks fly, the orchestra plays, guns are fired, papers are burned, tears are shed, hearts are broken…it’s quite a party. DaCosta infuses Hedda with a new, feminist energy, transplanting Ibsen’s 19th-century Norwegian play to mid-20th-century England. The occasional winking anachronism—the orchestra’s spirited take on a Björk song, for example—only adds to the giddy atmosphere. Thompson is quite fabulous in the difficult title role, creating dimensionality and sympathy for a woman who is… pretty vicious, really. With sets and costumes that are lavish to the point of near-absurdity, Hedda is opulent to behold. Filmed in glorious golden hues by Sean Bobbitt (12 Years a Slave), the film looks bathed in soft candlelight, even as its message is harsh and cutting. But lots of fun, too. ~SM