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When Nia DaCosta burst onto the scene with Little Woods and later carved space for herself in the MCU with The Marvels, there was always a sense that her most personal work was yet to come. With Hedda, her bold reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, that promise has arrived in full force. Premiering at TIFF 2025 before landing in theaters this October and Prime Video later in the month, Hedda is a lush, volatile, and unapologetically queer rendering of one of literature’s most infamous women. It’s more than an an adaptation, it’s a reclamation.

In this version DaCosta transforms the timeline of Ibsen’s play, written in 1891, a staple of the theatrical canon. The story now unfolds in 1954 England, inside a house dripping with Dior-inspired couture and postwar opulence. The setting is precise and decadent, but it is also suffocating. Hedda (played with breathtaking control by Tessa Thompson) moves through the rooms of her marital home like a caged predator, dressed to perfection but restless to the bone.

DaCosta sharpens the narrative by reframing the central relationships. Eilert Lövborg, once a male rival, becomes Eileen, a woman and Hedda’s former lover, played with quiet gravity by Nina Hoss. Alongside Thea Clifton (Imogen Poots), Hedda’s old school friend, the triangle becomes an electric collision of desire, rivalry, and repression. This shift is not just cosmetic. By centering the film on three women, DaCosta makes visible what has always lingered under Ibsen’s text: the way patriarchal structures trap women into contorting their loves, ambitions, and identities.

What makes DaCosta’s take so compelling is her refusal to soften Hedda. Tessa Thompson’s performance resists any temptation to render her sympathetic. This Hedda is unforgiveable and undefendable, yet mesmerizing. Thompson’s Hedda weaponizes her intelligence, manipulates her friends, and thrives on destruction, all while simmering with a queer longing that gives new resonance to her choices. Watching her is both thrilling and terrifying,a reminder that not all female-centered stories must produce likable heroines to be worth telling. However, the film unfortunately has some shortcomings in presenting Hedda’s backstory to it’s audience. Hedda can be vindictive, mean-spirited and lack sympathy for others. Why she inhibits these traits we don’t fully know.

We know she’s in a loveless marriage and we do know her former lover is with another and she’s lives with a broken heart, but it doesn’t quite measure up and account for the kind of cruelty she displaces on others. There was some emotional decay in Hedda’s character I would have liked to see developed a bit more on screen and it we never captured those moments.

Visually, Hedda is stunning. Sean Bobbitt’s cinematography traps characters in gilded frames, turning every dinner party and cocktail toast into a battlefield of glances and barbs. Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir provides a score that creeps under the skin, layering the film’s glamour with menace. The music informs the tension in every scene as well giving murder-mystery vibes.

What’s most striking about Hedda is how queer desire is woven into its DNA without being treated as spectacle. Hedda’s longing for Eileen, her coded repression, and her weaponization of intimacy all feel organic to the era DaCosta has chosen. This isn’t a wink to modern audiences. It’s a genuine recontextualization that allows the themes of love, power, and autonomy to resonate anew.

DaCosta has often spoken about waiting until she felt “unbound” as a filmmaker to tackle Hedda, and that patience shows. This is a film unafraid of contradiction, uninterested in easy answers, and more than willing to let audiences wrestle with its jagged morality.

Hedda is not comfort cinema. It doesn’t ask us to forgive its protagonist, nor does it offer neat resolutions. What it delivers instead is something far more potent: a portrait of a woman who burns down her own world rather than conform to it. In Tessa Thompson’s hands, Hedda is volatile, glamorous, and unrelentingly human.

DaCosta’s adaptation will likely divide audiences. Some will balk at Hedda’s cruelty or the film’s refusal to tidy up her mess. But for those willing to sit in the discomfort, Hedda is a revelation. It’s a reminder that classic texts aren’t meant to be embalmed. They’re meant to be reawakened, reshaped, and challenged.

With Hedda, DaCosta cements herself as one of the most daring storytellers of her generation. She takes a 19th-century tragedy, drenches it in mid-century glamour, queers its heart, and delivers a film that feels both timeless and utterly of this moment.

Hedda make its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival

The post TIFF 2025 Review: Nia DaCosta and Tessa Thompson Reignite Ibsen’s Classic With Queer Ferocity in ‘Hedda’ appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.