Imagine Arabian Nights, filtered through a Sofia-Coppola-esque feminist sensibility, but spiced up with camp. That gets you some of the way into 100 Nights of Hero, a British indie romp based on a graphic novel by Isabel Greenberg. It has saucy wit –especially up to the hour mark.
The setting is a magical kingdom called Migal Bavel, where women are the victims of tradition: they have been forbidden for centuries from reading or writing. The predicament of Cherry (Maika Monroe), a nervy bride wedded to handsome prince Jerome (Amir El-Masry), is an obligation to bear him an heir as soon as possible, or she will be hanged by a low-fun religious order called the Beak Brothers.
The only trouble is that Jerome prefers “manly pursuits” to sharing her bed. He scarpers on a long trip, leaving Cherry in the dual care of her maid Hero (Emma Corrin) and his opportunistic friend Manfred (Nicholas Galitzine).
Come hither: Nicholas Galatzine and Maika Monroe – Matt Towers
Even Manfred, with his come-hither eyes and perma-pout, wonders if this decision is entirely wise. Jerome has such an arrogant attitude to his wife’s virginal loyalty that he places a wager: if Manfred succeeds in popping Cherry’s cherry within the 100 nights that he’s away, he can call dibs on all Jerome’s riches, plus his castle.
Writer-director Julia Jackman, pushing forward with her second feature after the gay romcom Bonus Track, concentrates on the besieging of Cherry’s emotions. Is she really the main character? The film dithers on that score, and Monroe does a line in jittery, alabaster distress that’s a little tricky to engage with.
The surer-footed Galitzine is thoroughly typecast by now – if still funny – as a lubricious rake who’ll try anything. He strides back to the castle shirtless, sweating and covered in blood, toting the head of a newly slaughtered stag. Cherry keeps having fits of the vapours from his sheer attractiveness, while Hero waits in the wings.
Corrin, never more elfin or coolly controlled, holds the film together – it’s the best use of her in films since the Netflix Lady Chatterley adaptation. The sly, competitive Hero, who has Cherry’s back, kills time by regaling her (and an utterly nonplussed Manfred) with folk tales about a trio of sisters persecuted for witchcraft. Blink and you’ll nearly miss pop icon Charli XCX as the one who gets betrothed, before her husband (Tom Stourton) turns out to be a tyrant.
The zest of the whole thing sharply fades when the 100 days are up; the script’s fusions of Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter get bald; and the Cherry-Hero love story has nowhere left to go. To the end, though, Jackman’s film is brightly visualised, with particularly ace costumes by the designer Susie Coulthard – whose knack for making her small budget stretch is indispensable. This flight of fancy may land with a bump, but no one is lacking for sensational things to wear.
Screening at the London Film Festival. In UK cinemas from January 2026
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