Well hello there, my beautiful bi cinephiles! Are you more of a classic popcorn person when you go to the movies, or a caramel corn aficionado? I never can decide. Recently, a theatre I go to started offering a third option where you can choose a candy to drop into your popcorn bucket to mix it up. I got some M&Ms, and it felt like the best of both worlds — sweet and salty at the same time! It felt very bi of me to be into the upgrade.
So, pretty soon I’m coming up on my twentieth anniversary of moving to L.A. for my acting and writing career. That’s two decades as a professional creative, and for all of its ups and downs, I am grateful for every damn second of it. And as I’ve been reflecting on the lessons of years past, one cropped up in my mind that I’m thinking about today. You see, Eric Stoltz had been an acting student of a teacher of mine, and at the end of the acting program, as a treat, he came back to do a Q&A with our class. Most of us students were familiar with his work, but our teacher also made sure to show us a few scenes from his Broadway turn in Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, “Our Town.” It was magical — so fresh and accessible.
I asked Stoltz for his advice on how to take on such hallowed, classic works. His simple, effective advice? “Don’t treat it like a museum piece.” In short: you had to take the script off of its pedestal and really examine and play with it to take the stuffiness out of it. That always stuck with me (and also, turns out, it was really useful advice!)
Why am I talking about this old story? Because today, readers, we are talking about the new film adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play, “Hedda Gabler,” simply called Hedda, starring Tessa Thompson (#Bi2). And what does any of that have to do with the Unicorn Scale? Read on, my friends. Read on.
First and foremost, I should note there will be SPOILERS for this 2025 Amazon Prime drama. As far as content warnings, those include but are not limited to: blackmail, alcoholic relapsing, brief nudity and sex, possible death, and discussion of and suicide attempts. If you’re concerned there may be one I missed you need to know before watching, you can double-check this list here. Finally, if this is your first time around the Scale or you’d just like a refresher on the metric, you can do so here.
Ready, darlings? Then let’s grab a drink and begin.
What I liked:
Hedda follows one crucial night in the life of Hedda Gabler (Thompson), the daughter of a general, throwing a bohemian party for the friends of her ambitious but lacking professor-to-be husband. But things go awry when her former lover shows up — Eileen Lovberg (Nina Hoss), a brilliant writer and researcher.
“Hedda Gabler” as a play is a classic for many reasons. First off, Ibsen is, in many ways, responsible for our modern sensibilities in plays, a master of modern drama, and a major player in the movement of theatrical realism. His 1890 creation of Hedda is considered one of the greatest and most difficult roles for actresses to play, a dream role akin to Hamlet for many. Why? Hedda is both relatable and complex, nearly an antihero, requiring nuance and empathy as a woman struggling to break free from the expectations placed on women in society.
But what about a play from the Gilded Age could resonate for audiences today? Surprisingly, a lot. As writer/director Nia DeCosta proves with this adaptation. There is plenty of wit and chafing regarding men’s expectations of women, which is still, to this day, all too relatable to women everywhere. By modernizing the play into a 1950s setting and making Hedda both bi and biracial, the material begins to soar, taking off from its intersectional crossroads and giving even more reasons for Hedda’s rage and claustrophobia beyond a rich woman’s ennui. Hedda is funny, clever, charming, and a fully realized character with ambitions, wants, and faults of her own. We see her attraction to both men and women throughout the film — and how she can wield her wiles and turn of mind to great effect. But Hedda is not made bi just for some sexy effect. It fits well into the plot and how she and her former lover, Eileen, try to move through their respective worlds, the rumors that can keep them from ascending. Their desires have to remain behind closed doors for ambitious women like them and Eileen’s assistant, Thea (Imogen Poots), to climb society’s proverbial ladder.
Also, it may seem like a small thing, but it’s so damn refreshing to see a bi character like this version of Hedda played by a bi woman like Thompson. She knows how to play deeper truths of a queer woman who is socially suffocating in a way that is instantly recognizable to anyone within the LGBT community.
Finally, there is a major departure in how the film concludes as compared to the tragedy of the original play, which leaves the audience with an open question. DaCosta manages to avoid #KillYourGays here, assures that there may be more to the cat-and-mouse game than we see in the Ibsen original, and keeps the ending from being needlessly tragic. I want someone else to watch this so we can discuss this ending, because I have thoughts!
What I didn’t like:
All this said, Hedda is no angel. She is a liar and a fierce manipulator, with her mind games driving most of the plot. But since these were also the main tragic flaws with the original character and are not an add-on since queering the material, I will give it a pass.
Also, I know that often I cry foul at the lack of the term “bi” being used whenever anything is set past, say, the 1920s (since the term came about in the 1890s), but Hedda is very much a bi show-don’t-tell, so it did not ruffle my feathers as much in this arena, either.
The Rating:
Ibsen remains one of the greatest dramatists the world has ever seen, creating complex characters that endure well over a century later. But DaCosta took Stoltz’s advice to heart and did not treat Hedda as a museum piece — it’s chic, fascinating, and complex, and gets upgraded to being bi as hell. Sometimes one actually can improve on the classics. 3.5 out of four unicorns.
