An incomplete review of HEDDA* - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Official Competition

Tessa Thompson (Westworld) gives a career-endingly bad performance in the title role of this risible adaptation of Ibsen.  It was so bad I gasped after her first sentence, committed myself to seeing if it settled down, but simply left after thirty minutes of aural torture. I am not sure what she was going for. Maybe Vanessa Kirby as Princess Margaret in The Crown? It is so affected and so arch I can only assume it was an actual choice but Christ alive why did none of the British cast members say anything?

What else can I say about my brief interaction with this film?  I am not entirely sure why it was updated from Ibsen’s original period and setting to 1950s Britain, as opposed to, say, a contemporary setting. It allows for some lovely frocks.  But maybe writer-director Nia DaCosta (THE MARVELS) was on the verge of saying something interesting about the sexual and cultural mores of the time? Who can tell.  She certainly did NOT seem to be interested in interrogating the presence of a rich, nepo-baby black woman in white society in the 30 minutes I watched.  And I suspect, given the flashy superficial mise-en-scene, that recasting Hedda’s former lover as a woman (Nina Hoss - apparently scene-stealingly brilliant) was more stunt than nuanced take on queer love in the fifties.  As soon as they started dancing to a version of Bjork’s It’s Oh So Quiet I made my move.  This is not the film for me. I am afraid I just could not get passed the horrific fake accent.

HEDDA is rated R and has a running time of 107 minutes. It played Toronto and London and will be streaming on Amazon Prime on October 29th.

BLACK DOG* - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 9

BLACK DOG is the debut feature from actor-director George Jaques starring writer-actor Jamie Flatters (AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER) as Nathan and Keenan Munn-Francis as Sam.  The two teenagers meet when Sam is being mugged and Nathan apparently stops to help him out.  They run into each other again and end up sharing a trip up to Scotland from London.  Nathan is the more dominant character, even criticising Sam's driving. He's just left foster care and is going up to Scotland to find his sister. As for Sam, his reasons for going north are more mysterious. 

I think we are meant to find this road-trip deeply affecting, and to be moved by these two protagonists finding companionship and empathy in their traumatic childhood experiences.  But I found the film to be underwritten, over-acted by Flatters, and cliched in its direction. How many times have we seen a conflicted character jump into a swimming pool as a camera follows them under water in slo-mo? How many times have we seen a character plunge into the ocean in a moment of catharsis? I wanted more from this. I wanted to feel real deep human connection, and a unique moving reaction to spending intense time together. I was disappointed.

BLACK DOG has a running time of 96 minutes and had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival.