‘Hedda’ is a delicious power trip

Tessa Thompson in Hedda Photo provided by Amazon MGM Studios Toward the beginning of Hedda we find our titular heroine Tessa Thompson standing alone atop her vast estate wielding a pistol Down below Judge Roland Brack Nicholas Pinnock makes his way across the grass He s arrived early for Hedda s party thrown in celebration of her marriage to George Tesman Tom Bateman Hedda admonishes Brack for his earliness Shall I punish you she drawls pointing the gun at Brack She suddenly aims wide and fires chuckling at Brack s horrified reaction She wins this round Hedda written and directed by Nia DaCosta and adapted from Henrik Ibsen s play Hedda Gabler is all about punishment and power centering around the woman on top of the parapet who s as likely to turn her gun on herself as anyone else Hedda is a whirling dervish of power struggles featuring a powerhouse performance from Thompson at the eye of the hurricane Setting the story in the s DaCosta beautifully updates Ibsen s play to explore questions of sexuality and race within one woman s quest to find even an ounce of control Hedda bohemian the illegitimate child of a general and George stuffy an academic are throwing this party not just as a way to celebrate their union but also as a way to land George a professorship It s imperative that George get this job the Tesmans are living in a too-large house they can t afford with little to no money to spend But the sudden arrival of Eileen Lovborg Nina Hoss George s academic rival and Hedda s one-time secret lover blows up the evening with catastrophic consequences Hedda is filmed in such a way to make the audience feel like another guest at the party There s something almost gossipy about the camera giving you the same salacious excited feeling you get when you hear something you weren t supposed to DaCosta along with cinematographer Sean Bobbitt don t rely heavily on closeups When you re not swirling around the party the camera putting you right in the middle of all the raucous action you mostly find yourself on the periphery eavesdropping on secret conversations or hastily following different characters through the chaos desperate to see the inevitable explosion And there s bound to be an explosion where Hedda is concerned Thompson is as wonderful as she s ever been her words clipped and sweet but coming down on her unsuspecting casualties like a knife in the back DaCosta s script is delicious filled with double entendres and the veiled barbs of polite society For Hedda who delivers those barbs with a sharp tongue words are one of the only options she believes she can wield power In this iteration of the story Hedda is not just illegitimate but also Black It s rarely explicitly commented on but it s invariably lurking under the surface It s in the way the maid Kathryn Hunter rolls her eyes as Hedda inspects the kitchens It s in the way a professor s wife murmurs She s duskier than I thought she d be after being introduced It s in the way Brack a Black man still with more power than Hedda tells her that in marrying George she made the safe choice The only choice really for someone like you Eileen doesn t see Hedda s choices as self-preservation or elevation but rather cowardice As the movie progresses it becomes clear that her relationship with Eileen was something Hedda sacrificed in order to carve out a role for herself where she feels safer and more in control In marrying George Hedda has made herself the alluring queen of a group of people she believes herself smarter and better than a group she enjoys toying with because she knows how they feel about her This is a world where she can control everything and everyone She s invariably aware of whose eyes are on her aware of who requirements another drink meticulously maneuvering her little puppets just to her liking Eileen outrageously intelligent queer and alcoholic someone who could ruin what little status Hedda has at the drop of a hat but who she can t help but be drawn to represents a lack of control George almost impotent in Hedda s eyes a man who can t fathom any type of sex outside of the blandly heteronormative is easy But where Hedda finds power she too finds misery Eileen and her new protege lover Thea Imogen Poots are just reminders of the life Hedda could have had if she weren t born into the situation that she was or if she were brave enough not to care When a pivotal moment between Eileen and Hedda ends with a devastating confession setting off Hedda s need for punishment she digs her claws deeper into her machinations That potent combination of jealousy lust and self-preservation sends Hedda and all the other characters for that matter on a certified power bender Hedda might be the control center of power in the film but everyone is grasping for what little they can reach George and Brack both seek to control Hedda albeit in different procedures Thea wants the power to stop Eileen from drinking and Eileen seeks to control the way her male colleagues view her The question of the age difference between Eileen and Hedda arises late in the film causing the audience to rethink everything they ve seen up until that point And Hedda wants power in whatever way she can have it She cannot be happy not in her mind at least so she will take every last opportunity to make everyone around her as miserable as she is Whatever the cost The post Hedda is a delicious power trip appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta