100 NIGHTS OF HERO* - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Closing Night Gala

100 NIGHTS OF HERO is a wonderful graphic novel by Isabel Greenberg whose themes are feminist and queer and sex positive. In layered and echoing stories she tells us about a world created by a wonderful young woman called Kiddo until her dad, Birdman, turns into a tyrannical patriarchy. We hear about a beautiful young woman who gets pregnant by a man but transcends into a moon. We hear of a young bride abused by her husband - her washed bones made into a lyrical harp. Of beautiful sisters who secretly read and write and are murdered for this crime, their graves marked with stones. Again and again these layered stories recast well-known fairy-tales, biblical tales and myths and speak to a world in which bright women are subjugated and killed. 

And then we focus in on the story of Cherry and Hero. Cherry is an aristocrat and Hero is her maid but they are secret lovers. Cherry’s husband sets her up by making a despicable wager. His mate Manfred will have 100 nights to seduce her and prove that all women are harlots. This dastardly man tells her plainly he is going to rape her. So every night Hero tells Manfred a story so exciting that he forgets to rape Cherry, and leaves him on a cliffhanger. She is our Sheherezade for 100 nights. And not only for Manfred but the guards and the people of the town who also become hooked on the stories. So when at last our lovers are arrested and thrown from a tower in punishment, the town rises up and overthrows the patriarchy.  

The story is funny, profound, refreshingly sex positive and unnervingly relevant in these increasingly bigoted times. I love that Cherry and Hero feel no shame in their love. They both have intelligence and agency. Yes Hero is the more self-assured and infinitely resourceful but Cherry isn’t some passive whiny pathetic woman either. 

So imagine my horror at Julia Jackman’s new feature length adaptation of the novel, in which Cherry becomes a weedy pathetic simpering fool and there’s no sex, and half the stories are omitted or garbled, there’s no threat of rape, far from being hooked on the stories, the seducer is bored to sleep by them, and … and … it just all makes no sense. It’s all so milquetoast. Where’s the audacity and wonder and excitement? 

I also hate to rag on a film that presumably had a micro-budget but it just looks cheap. This should be a film set mostly at night in which the moon and stars are major characters. A film in which a big city full of people rises up in revolt. But no. This is all broad daylight and harshly reflective electric candles and aaargh! I am so frustrated at this milquetoast under-funded attempt at turning this wonderful book into a film. Pretty much the only thing it got right was the deadpan wit thanks to Emma Corrin’s hilarious reaction shots and Nicholas Galitzine’s line-readings as Hero and Manfred respectively.

100 NIGHTS OF HERO is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 90 minutes. It played Venice and London and opens in the US on December 5th.

BOTTOMS*****

Director Emma Seligman (SHIVA BABY) and writer-actor Rachel Sennott (THE IDOL) reimagine BOOKSMART as a tale of two high-school lesbian best friends who want to lose their virginity before college.  They get their chance when a rumour goes around the school that they served time in Juvenile Detention, giving them instant cool status. The girls exploit this by setting up a kind of FIGHT CLUB to teach their fellow girls how to defend themselves from sexual predation. Naturally they are delighted when the two hot popular cheerleaders turn up.

The landscape of this film is familiar to those of us raised on John Hughes movies and HEATHERS and Friday Night Lights. It's a culture that privileges the beautiful and the sports stars and is oppressively heteronormative. It's a culture that doesn't fund teachers or books but builds a new sports field. This film is  here to rip the piss out of all of that. Not just in hilariously blunt dialogue that has characters say exactly what they think no matter how politically incorrect. But also with visual gags around posters and text written on chalk boards and aural jokes on the school's PA system.  The result is a film that is laugh-out loud funny and that will absolutely repay repeated viewing.  It features a cracking largely all-female diverse cast. That said, particular props to ex sports star Marshawn Lynch who has some of the most darkly funny lines as the girls' No Fucks Given high school teacher. And Nicholas Galitzine, most recently seen in the Amazon Prime gay rom-com RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE, is hilariously funny as the camp jock superstar.

Behind the lens, this film is exceptionally well put together by director Emma Seligman.  The editing is sharp, the music choices stunningly good and the copious violence directed with real impact and flair.  Most of all, I loved the production design and costumes.  The team have created a kind of era-ambiguous contemporary but retro feeling, as in the TV show Sex Education. It could be any time between 1989 and now. It gives the film a timeless feeling but also acknowledges our shared love of the high school movie genre, adding layers of depth to the viewing experience.

BOTTOMS is rated R and has a running time of 91 minutes. It played SXSW 2023 and was released in the USA in August. It goes on release in the UK tomorrow, November 3rd.