In Hedda, Tessa Thompson Is Black, Queer, Messy & Chaotic — It’s Exhilarating To Watch

What’s Good? Hedda is good because Nia DaCosta is great. And Tessa Thompson is even better. The DaCosta-directed adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s classic play stars Thompson in the titular role as Hedda Gabler, an ambitious, repressed housewife still hung up on her prodigious ex-lover, Eileen (played by an enthralling Nina Hoss) and bored by her prosaic husband, George (a delightfully aloof and banal Tom Bateman). Hedda’s disenchantment comes to a head at a dinner party where Eileen shows up with her new girlfriend, Thea (Imogen Poots playing frantic and overwrought perfectly), as she’s vying for the same job as George. Throw in Hedda’s other sometimes-lover Judge Roland Brack (a mischievous and menacing Nicolas Pinnock) in the mix and you’ve got a night of mayhem and manipulation. 

Set in 1950s England, as the party devolves into shambles — mostly orchestrated by Hedda herself — Hedda goes from a simmering conversation about what happens to a woman bound by her circumstances to a sexy psychological thriller about class, power, and ambition. As the events of the evening unfold, Hedda becomes more and more quietly unhinged and Thompson is so magnetic, oozing with charisma, that you can’t look away and you can’t help but root for one of the messiest women in cinematic history. I like to think of this column as my own Oscars. The Academy is going to deem their own “best of the best” come March 2026, and while Tessa Thompson’s name should definitely be on that ballot, in this space, I get to say what’s the best of the year and I am telling you — unequivocally — that Hedda is one of the best films and performances of the past year. Period. 

Who It’s Good For (spoilers ahead): I’m probably supposed to say that Hedda is good because it shows you a complex female character we haven’t seen onscreen before but I don’t think that’s true. We’ve seen many complex female characters onscreen — some were played by Thompson. What makes Hedda so great and unique is that the complex female character that we’re seeing is not only Black, she’s also queer, and she’s one of the most infuriating characters I’ve ever watched. Complimentary! Hedda is frustrating because even when you disagree with her choices on a fundamental level, you understand every single one of her motivations for being a manipulative, conniving, chaos monster. She does all of these things — like (spoiler!) burn Eileen’s manuscript — because she is handcuffed by the confines of her surroundings. In order to break free of those constraints, Hedda acts out and becomes an architect of destruction. The thing this movie says so boldly is not only is Hedda’s acting out OK, it’s fucking fun to watch. As Hedda blows up her own world and unravels the life she has carefully crafted while desperately trying to hold onto it, the audience is watching her fight for freedom. And that’s relatable to any woman, but it’s also liberating to watch a Black woman push to define herself, even if her methods are questionable. 

The question at the center of Hedda, according to DaCosta, is “What does freedom look like?” she tells me over Zoom from New York, sitting beside Thompson. “Especially when it comes to how we represent ourselves, how we represent ourselves as Black women, is it freedom to limit ourselves to just these stereotypically positive traits, like being elegant or strong or noble? Is that freedom?” It’s not. I think true freedom for Black characters to be able to be whatever they are in all of their complicated, messy, frustrating, contradicting ways, just like human beings are, and just like their white counterparts so often get to be.

“I understand historically that we have to make sure that we're not going to invite literal violence, by showing a negative portrayal of Blackness. I'm really empathetic to that attempt, but I also think it does limit us,” DaCosta continues. “For me, what's been so important is seeing dynamic, human, Black women on screen in my life. I think that's really what builds empathy, not making a small box for ourselves that we have to fit into. It was really exciting for me, but I also knew that people might get a little upset.”

I didn’t find it upsetting to watch Hedda elegantly stomping around her party looking stunning (seriously, has anyone ever looked better onscreen than Thompson in this role?) and actively dismantling the lives of everyone around her. I found it fascinating. And because Thompson plays Hedda with nuance and depth, it never feels like her manipulation is simply incidental. Even when Hedda is at her absolute worst — like trying to convince Eileen to end her own life (diabolical!) — you can see that her judgement is clouded by self preservation, heartbreak, and desperation. It’s in those moments of inner turmoil where Hedda, and Thompson, shine. “Over the course of my career, I've somehow gotten very, very lucky to play women that are complicated and interesting and aren't always completely digestible or perfect. It's just always been what I've been attracted to,” Thompson says. “And I think the thing that felt particularly exciting about this piece is Ibsen, in the head of Gabler, wrote the prototypical first, way-ahead-of-her-time complicated, messy woman. I think what felt really exciting is to turn that on its head and to reimagine it and to repurpose it and to reconstruct it in all the beautiful ways that Nia was able to.” 

If you’re familiar with Ibsen’s play, you’ll love Hedda. And if you’re not, you’ll be in awe of how timely the text still is, and you’ll — in spite of yourself — fall in love with a character who may or may not love herself and is intent on challenging everyone around her to face their own inner demons. There’s a method to her menace.

How Good Is It? Hedda is so good, I’ve seen it four times – twice at the Toronto International Film Festival because I went to the premiere and hosted an In Conversation with Thompson and DaCosta, and twice again to prep for our interview. Each time, I found something new to fixate on. The last time, I found myself connecting Hedda’s plight as a queer 1950s housewife without the freedom to live as she desires to the current tradwife resurgence. I ask DaCosta about the connection: “I find the tradwife thing super interesting because I can totally see that being a valid economic choice, considering the shit show that is our current climate, economy, world,” DaCosta says. “And also, you see it happen a lot where women choose to give up parts of their freedom so that they can feel safe, even though I don't think that actually makes you safe.” 

“I think Hedda is someone who's wrestling with that. Actually, she's wrestling with [the thoughts that] these things make me safe, or they're supposed to make me safe, but they're also killing me,” DaCosta continues. “That battle is where so much of her frustration and her violence comes from, not just the violence she directs outwards, but also towards herself. But I think that's so complicated for her to unpick and what we're watching is someone unpick that in whatever way she can.”

As Hedda battles with herself, there’s a rage simmering underneath every smirk and every one of her bleak and destructive actions. Whether that rage makes Hedda suicidal is up for debate up until the final frame. When I ask Thompson about female rage, she says she was able to say so much about the topic through Hedda. “I think there is a tremendous amount of rage that gets started inside of us as humans full stop, but particularly related to moving through the world as a woman,” Thompson says. “I've spoken about my grandmothers on this press tour, because I started with them [in preparing for Hedda]. I started to imagine the rage that they must have felt that never got to be expressed. For my father's mother, she immigrated to this country as a young woman of color in working spaces, managing the whole house. And her life revolved around her family, and she happily made that choice.”

“But I look at photographs of her before she immigrated, [she’s] free on a beach with her friends. I think there was a certain kind of freedom that she had before she came to America and was suddenly a Black American,” Thompson continues. “I just imagine all of the things that she must have felt, all of the private rage that she must have suppressed, and the same for my maternal grandmother. It felt like getting to play this character, to unleash that rage, maybe not in the kindest ways, as Hedda, but it felt like getting to exorcize that for all of the women in my life, for the woman I have been in the past that had secret, private rage at the violence sometimes that you can experience as a young girl moving through the world. It felt good to put it on screen and I hope that in some private ways, it can help people who see the film, and particularly women, to just engage with that. It doesn't mean you need to cause harm because of it, but don't deny that you might feel [rage]. Allow yourself the space.”

And that’s ultimately what Thompson and DaCosta have done: provided a space where female rage, complexity, and messiness can coexist. It’s work that I imagine would make Thompson’s grandmothers very proud. Often when we talk about artists on the margins — the ones who aren’t white or straight or male or all three — we talk about the past or about how much they still have to achieve, how excellent they have to be in order to be worthy enough to earn their place. Tessa Thompson and Nia DaCosta are already there, and more importantly, they do work that makes us look forward with hope and endless possibility. That’s how I felt watching Hedda.

Turning Henrik Ibsen’s play into a sensual Black, queer, romp for modern audiences was risky. But Thompson and DaCosta have proven time and time again that they take big swings. From blockbusters (both have dabbled in the Marvel universe, Thompson is the star of the Creed franchise and DaCosta is about to direct the next instalment of  the 28 Years Later series), to daring adaptations, to small original ideas (they first collaborated on Little Woods), this director-actor duo do all the things we’re being told can’t exist in Hollywood anymore. And their latest collaboration is their best yet. Ultimately, Hedda is a stunning reimagining that painstakingly and purposefully builds towards an astonishing climax. It’s gorgeous and bold and just another entry into the canon of both DaCosta and Thompson’s work about complicated, brilliant, and infuriating women. 

What Else Is Good?
•  After The Hunt is good! I promise you it will outlive its discourse. My interview with stars Ayo Edebiri and Andrew Garfield is also really good if I do say so myself.
•  The Go Off, Sis podcast featuring Olandria Carthen!!!!
•  Scorpio Season
•  Believe the hype about pickleball, my coworker Sandy Pierre says, and I’ve decided to believe her.
•  Once more for the people in the back, allowing yourself the space to feel RAGE!