In nearly every film Nia DaCosta has helmed in her short yet accomplished career, the filmmaker has always found a weighty subject to tackle in pursuit of understanding.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n In her auspicious 2018 debut, \u201cLittle Woods,\u201d DaCosta told a story of women navigating life in poor rural America to confront the opioid crisis and pressing issues in women\u2019s health care. In 2021, her acclaimed remake of \u201cCandyman\u201d examined how a history of racial violence against Black men gave rise to the chilling urban legend. And in her latest cinematic turn, \u201cHedda,\u201d a provocative reimagining of Henrik Ibsen\u2019s 1891 play, the writer-director finds herself exploring the ways that women find agency in a world where race, gender, class and sexual identity can complicate that autonomy. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n According to DaCosta, the inspiration for her years-in-the-making adaptation stemmed from a query she often grapples with.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhat really is freedom?\u201d the filmmaker posed during our recent Zoom interview. \u201cI think, especially as a Black person in America, that\u2019s a really important and really dynamic question.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s certainly a fair one to ask in today\u2019s time. Perhaps an even better one to ask in a day and age when the concept of freedom seemed just as fragile, like the postwar era of 1950s England, in which DaCosta\u2019s \u201cHedda\u201d is set \u2014 or as the director refers to it, the \u201cGreat Age of Pretending.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAfter the horrors of WWII, there was a moment of trying to snap everything back in place,\u201d DaCosta writes in her film\u2019s production notes, referencing the repressed time of women being pushed out of the workforce for returning servicemen in an effort to get society back to some sense of normalcy. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt was too terrifying to reckon with all that happened, so instead, there was a collective delusion that everything was fine,\u201d DaCosta added. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t real, and it was suffocating for many people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n That conflict and historical framework set the scene for DaCosta\u2019s \u201cHedda,\u201d which stars Tessa Thompson as the titular restless housewife, who feels trapped by her marriage, scandal, societal expectations and a world in which she can\u2019t live on her own terms.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the twisted thriller, out now on Prime Video, Hedda is newly married to her husband, George (Tom Bateman), and bored out of her mind with her current life. On the night of her lavish dinner party, Hedda\u2019s discontent threatens to erupt when her former flame, Dr. Eileen L\u00f6vborg (played superbly by Nina Hoss), reappears with her new girlfriend\/assistant, Thea (Imogen Poots), as another lover, Judge Roland Brack (Nicolas Pinnock), sniffs around hoping to seduce Hedda, or worse.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s in these few subtle ways that DaCosta\u2019s fresh interpretation helps the audience understand the circumstances that have bound Hedda and why she\u2019s so prone to resorting to unhinged tactics to get what she truly desires: freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n But the journey there is as messy as she is. Hence, the unruly evening of mayhem and madness that unfolds in \u201cHedda,\u201d mainly the title character\u2019s doing. She manipulates, cheats, betrays, and cuts down anyone or anything in her path as a result of the limitations that have been placed on her, both by herself and others. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n All of these charged facets DaCosta found \u201cfascinating\u201d enough to explore in her own bold way onscreen because she knew audiences would likely find Hedda just as intoxicating and relatable as she did when she first read Ibsen\u2019s play.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt was almost like seeing a shadow out of the corner of your eye and chasing that shadow,\u201d the director told me of what she found most compelling about Hedda. \u201cAnd that was sort of what I wanted to do with my adaptation. I want people to chase the shadow a little bit, or a lot, actually. And in so doing, find parts of themselves that maybe they need to attend to so that they don\u2019t end up becoming as volatile as our dear Hedda.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHedda\u201d reunites DaCosta and Thompson for a third collaboration after 2018\u2019s \u201cLittle Woods\u201d and 2023\u2019s \u201cThe Marvels,\u201d the latter of which is the last film that DaCosta worked on before setting her sights back on her mid-20th-century-set adaptation. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n She first drafted the screenplay for her latest film in 2018 but decided to hold onto it until the timing felt right. As it turned out, DaCosta\u2019s period piece offered the perfect opportunity to tap back into her creative instincts after working with the monster Marvel machine on her third feature ever \u2014 a project that also made her the youngest person and the first Black woman to direct an MCU film.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI absolutely needed to find myself as a filmmaker and to find my voice in a more acute way,\u201d DaCosta shared of the experience. \u201cSo that I could take that same energy onto the next thing \u2014 no matter whether it was something that was personal to me or a bigger franchise.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n In many respects, \u201cHedda\u201d was a deeply personal endeavor for DaCosta. The filmmaker aimed for her daring take on Ibsen\u2019s \u201cHedda Gabler,\u201d \u201cone of the great Bad Girl tales of all time,\u201d to be as captivating as the enigmatic title character. But just as importantly, she wanted her film to serve as a mirror that reflects a universal struggle among many women: the desire to be seen and understood by the world while we strive to understand ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n That required making some contemporary changes to Hedda herself \u2014 now a queer Black woman in the film \u2014 and to the elements that animate her world, such as Eilert being switched to Eileen, a woman, and Thea as her lover. Those new dynamics expanded DaCosta\u2019s portraits of stifled women struggling with internal plight from one to three in her film, something Thompson applauded when she read the former\u2019s screenplay.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI loved the changes,\u201d the actor told me, though she said she \u201cdidn\u2019t really understand\u201d when DaCosta told her she was interested in doing her own version of \u201cHedda Gabler\u201d when it\u2019s been \u201cdone so much onstage\u201d and \u201cvery iconically on film before.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cBut as soon as I read her script, I was like, \u2018OK, now I see why.\u2019 Because she took the things that excite me about the piece, and really amplified them,\u201d Thompson explained.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cParticularly in the change of Eilert to Eileen, she really centered three women on parallel paths to personhood and going about it in very different ways,\u201d the actor continued. \u201cI thought that was so brilliant and also so incredibly modern. And then I understood why we have to make a film of this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n When it came to molding this new-age version of Hedda, DaCosta began by picking apart Ibsen\u2019s classic material and constructing her wild heroine from there, choosing only what she deemed necessary for the story she wanted to tell, which is a slight departure from the original play.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Unlike Ibsen\u2019s Hedda, who Thompson noted was much clearer about communicating the grandiose things she desired \u2014 like saying, \u201cFor once, I want to shape a man\u2019s destiny\u201d \u2014 DaCosta chose to make her title character more subtle and cunning in her approach.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIn this, you don\u2019t hear [Hedda] say things like that,\u201d said Thompson. \u201cBut you see her try to navigate control over herself, control over the people in the room. And I think it makes for a really fascinating ride.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Indeed, from a viewer\u2019s standpoint, DaCosta\u2019s \u201cHedda\u201d is more like an odyssey, growing more frenzied by the minute, as the drama eventually becomes a pressure-cooker situation when tensions explode among Hedda\u2019s party guests. In the midst of this, Hedda is busy blowing up her life and hurting those closest to her in her own twisted pursuit of freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Still, it makes the five-act film a pretty riveting watch, as Hedda runs around her sprawling English estate like a self-sabotaging agent of chaos, making all kinds of infuriating choices that you wouldn\u2019t be wrong to fault her for. But this is a woman who relishes her bad behavior, hoping it will somehow help her find her way.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe expression of this conflict between freedom and a complete lack of it, I thought, was really such a delicious and dangerous and sometimes delightful dance,\u201d Thompson added. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the same breath, \u201cAlso a kind of sad one,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"(L-R)](\"https:\/\/img.huffingtonpost.com\/asset\/690102331800004347fe4793.jpg?ops=crop_880_0_2070_1255%2Cscalefit_720_noupscale&format=webp)
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