MGM/Amazon presents director/writer Nia DaCosta's re-imagining of Ibsen's classic play Hedda Gabler, which relocates the tale of a frustrated woman's desires and aspirations to a 1950s country pile, taking place over over one fateful night (and its aftermath) at a lavish party designed to secure Hedda's husband's academic promotion over a more lively rival. Tessa Thompson shines in the lead role with a disdainfully manipulative and coolly-controlled performance, with excellent and quietly-nuanced support from Tom Bateman as her husband George, Imogen Poots as her awkward lovelorn friend Thea, and Nina Hoss giving a swaggeringly imperious turn as George's rival Eileen. At times, its mix of theatrical, cinematic and naturalistic stylings is jerkily obvious, and Ibsen's destructively chilly bleakness is replaced more by a feeling of shallow ennui, but on its own terms Hedda is an interesting but not entirely successful take on the familiar source material.
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