Hedda (2025)

You have no idea how much I’ve agonised over writing a review of Hedda. I know people read film reviews for two main reasons: is this film my kind of film and is it any good?

But as a writer, I want to tell you all about my understanding of Ibsen, how I how I studied him at university and got a first for a paper on The Doll’s House. I want you to know that I have an understanding of the character of Hedda Gabler. I want to write about the historical moment of her creation, which was about a shift in theatre towards naturalism, but also a shift in the science of psychology and the burgeoning art of psychoanalysis.

I’ve tried to put those words down, but I ended up lost amongst them. It was like being in a competition, trying to prove something that only mattered to me. This is fitting for watching Nia DaCosta’s dazzling Hedda. She has made a film about a woman who is also lost without the courage of her convictions.

Hedda is a 2025 film written and directed by Nia DaCosta, based on the stage play Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen in 1891.

The original play is set in turn of the 19th century Norway. It could be classified as a comedy of manners crossed with a tragedy focussed on the unpredictable Hedda. What is Hedda going to do next, having chosen what she sees as a stultifying marriage to George Tessman? Returned from her honeymoon, where he pursued his academic research, she is bored, wound-up, ready for mischief. The play establishes the artifice of the newly-weds seemingly affluent lifestyle, as dependent on borrowed money, requiring George to get promoted to Professor to pay off debts. This seemed assured until his old rival and a possible ex-lover of Hedda’s returns to the scene – Eilert Lovberg. Eilert was written off as a drunk and unreliable, but has since found sobriety and a new love, Thea. What makes the play startling and intriguing is Hedda. She is vivacious, unfocussed and cruel.

There are three major changes that DaCosta has made to Ibsen’s work.

First, she has moved the action to the 1950s. DaCosta’s 1950s is a more exuberant age than the stuffiness of Ibsen’s 1890s. But it maintains some of the same limitations, especially for women of limited resources. The class system still holds onto the reins. (There is a delightful interlude where momentarily the action moves ‘downstairs’ to the servant quarters and the maid (Kathryn Hunter) gets to commentate on the fragility of the luxury in a turn that is reminiscent of Thelma Ritter). It is pre-computer, so a handwritten manuscript is still feasibly a one-off. The setting remains a big house away from a town centre. It has a glamorous recklessness of a continent recovering from war, but also the sense of isolation that comes from a lack of infra-structure and a reliance on gossip.

The second change is that everything is on-screen. Ibsen concentrated on the actions of Hedda as a Victorian wife, whose reputation required a demure demeanour and societal expectations meant she could not attend parties or drink. She could only receive passing visitors. The action was reported through dialogue. However, her 1950s counterpart is the hostess. She throws a party, she gains agency and she gets to show us the full extent of her charms, jealousies, concerns, fears and wiles. More importantly, we get to see the consequences.

And the third change, the one that will get the most coverage, is that there is a change of gender for George’s rival for the professorship. Eilert becomes Eileen.

Making the party the centrepiece allows for a swirl of action, of beautiful dresses, of nighttime intrigue, of music and dancing. The evening builds as guests get drunk, with a tenuous hold on reality and motives. The film is beautiful to watch.

In particular, Tessa Thompson’s rendition of Hedda is intoxicating. The script hints constantly at her past as a voracious party-goer, fiery and passionate with ex-lovers regardless of gender. Her Hedda has a gift at reading and playing people. She has a remarkably agile face that allows us to see the masks she puts on and drops.

The film works well with Ibsen’s themes around the performances required in class and gender. DaCosta extends this to include race and sexuality. But she still struggles to explain the malice of the protagonist.

So is this your kind of film? If you like historical drama, if you like big ideas and luxurious sets, if you like character-driven plots – then yes.

Is it good? Yes. I can make many clever observations about how it is not quite the play that Ibsen wrote, and that some of the subtlety is lost in all the sumptuousness and sexuality. But I loved being drawn into the world that it created.

Hedda will continue to be re-presented and revived for years in both the theatre and the screen, because there is something beguiling about watching a woman make unnerving, unwise choices.

There will always be discussion about whether she was trapped by circumstance or character, by gender or lack of courage.

Hedda would definitely receive some arm-chair psychological diagnosis these days – a sociopath, a narcissist, attention-deficient. And this would miss the point. There is no need to give her a label. Our job as audience or writer is simply to observe and record.

George Bernard Shaw hated the play and said of Hedda’s character:

“with plenty of cleverness, energy and personal fascination she remains mean, envious insolent, cruel in protest against others’ happiness, fiendish in her dislike of inartistic people and things, a bully in reaction from her own cowardice”

But Ibsen in writing her and writing about her, described her as a “poet” who cared about “human freedom”.

My own take is that she is driven by an impulse to create, but has no focus. She chose a stifling marriage and financial security to avoid making more courageous, creative choices. It leaves her envious and empty. She wants validation and attention, like an unloved child, or an over-looked academic…

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