"It's not essential to bone up on Henrik Ibsen's drama "Hedda Gabler" before seeing "Hedda," because the movie meets the crucial standard of adaptation: it's a formidable cinematic experience independent of its source. But to read the play, from 1890, in advance is to marvel at the combination of fidelity and freedom, of interpretation and imagination, that Nia DaCosta, the film's writer and director, brings to bear."
"DaCosta both reveals and revises the story's tragic dimension up front, opening with Hedda being questioned by the police about events that led to a certain consequential gunshot. Nearly the entire movie then unfolds in a flashback that dramatizes Hedda's account of the party. It begins the previous day, with a phone call from a long-absent friend, Eileen Lövborg (Nina Hoss), whom Hedda impulsively invites to the party."
"Eileen accepts, but her sarcasm hints at what their reunion later makes clear: the two women are ex-lovers. Eileen is also George's professional rival. He has been counting on a well-paying professorship, which he needs in order to afford his luxurious home. But Eileen, in the years since she and Hedda were together, has emerged as a far more original scholar. Now she is a candidate for the same academic position."
A 1950s England-set adaptation relocates a headstrong woman, recently returned from a honeymoon, who hosts a lavish party to announce her arrival. The narrative opens with police questioning about a consequential gunshot and mostly proceeds as a flashback recounting the party. An impulsive invitation brings a long-absent friend and former lover, whose sarcasm foreshadows renewed tensions. That friend also emerges as a stronger scholar and a rival for the same professorship that the husband has been counting on to afford their luxurious home, intensifying social and personal stakes.
Read at The New Yorker
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