Screening at TIFF: Nia Dacosta’s ‘Hedda’

Based on the classic play of Henrik Ibsen Hedda GablerNo Dacosta Hedda tries to re-interpret and modernize the late 19th-century material. In the process, however, it loosens the notes and bolts of the dramaturgical machine from Ibsen, giving it the ricket ricket until it falls apart. As visually unspoilt as it is dramatically boring, it is one of the most confusing “prestige” films of the autumn festival season.

The story, now located in England from the mid -20th century, follows dissatisfied Aristocrat Hedda Tesman (Née Gabler) as played by Tessa Thompson, thrown by her academic husband George (Tom Bateman) on the day of a lush party. Het opent met een openlijke hint over de mentaliteit van Hedda: haar zelfmoordpoging tot het meer door het landgoed van haar man wordt onderbroken door een telefoongesprek dat haar informeert over de langverwachte terugkeer van haar voormalige vlam-en George’s academische rivaal-Eileen Lovborg (Nina Hoss), een gender-bent incarnatie van het spel Ejlert Løvborg, Gesturing Explicking, Gesturing Explicking.

Hedda, dissatisfied with her marriage to George, spends a large part of the evening with the manipulation of her way through the guest list, both to have fun and in an attempt to secure her decreasing financial position. However, the relationship of the camera with Hedda’s lies and half truths feel strange. The film has a curious new framing device that is not present in the play: Hedda is questioned by the local police about the events of the evening – which the police hinted, ended in bloodshed – but this is calling to question the narrative POV of the film, because we have been privately made for the time of no circumstances.

Yet this logic is simple enough to bypass, because the story does not often return to Hedda that is questioned and the previous evening is largely tied to the party. Just like Ibsen’s work of theatrical realism, the film is primarily an implementation piece, and in that spirit it almost succeeds. While Hedda goes from room to room, forcing conflicts between some characters and inserting themselves between others, Thompson has a remarkably self -assured physical presence in one of the most coveted roles of the theater. Unfortunately, her efforts are often undone by her bizarre delivery.

It would be foolishness to harass on the faithfulness of the characters-its are English versions of Danish speaking characters written by a Norwegian playwright but the efforts of the American actress Thompson to retain an English accent of the higher class, at least, turn out to be said. She has the right intonations, but misses pronunciation, causing her to swallow her words. In a film where language is of great importance, given the specific ways in which Hedda manipulates the people around her, the story is difficult to follow.

On the other hand, Hoss, who comes from Germany, plays this new version of Lovborg both with its original accent and – more pertinent – with a showy despair and the psyche of her character is canceled. She is the indisputable highlight of the film, which performs circles around every other artist and almost spends the story with her clearly theatrical verve. The cast all performs admirable (including Bateman, whose naive representation of Tesman Hints has ROM-Com Colin Firth), but the aesthetic parameters of the film make their drama difficult to gauge.

Hedda Gabler has always been an unpredictable force, but the version of her seen in Hedda Loads in random, unforeseen directions, jumping and skipping from one subplot to the following without much by stimulating motive. The camera remains on her (and on other characters if necessary) for long periods without cutting away, to the point of robbing the film of the only advantage it has compared to most theatrical adjustments: the ability to use editing to form the emotional contours of a story. Dacosta’s work here has little sense of rhythm, reaction or revelation. Instead, just like a series of insulated skits that have almost completely shot in static close-ups, it plays an idea of ​​the prevention of camera movements or the blocking of the actors and body language of what can happen physically or emotionally at any time.

This lazy approach is mainly kneecap moments of hedonism and streaming, whereby the party guests release, which means that Hedda is inside and benefits from their drunken vulnerabilities. However, the film is concerned with neither subtlety nor subtext, and rarely establishes a difference between Hedda while in her own mind (and behind closed doors) and the way in which she acts around other people. It is a film in which every calculation motif exists in the open air – an approach that, strangely enough, also applies to his image of queerness. If it was once the intention to have the dynamic feeling of Hedda and Lovborg illegal (or between LOVBORG and the young and vulnerable Thea Clifton, as played by imogenous Poots), then attempts may have been lost in the random processing, which appreciates individual shots and times about a moving cinematic substance. The fact that the characters are queer adds little to the story, despite an environment where QueNness could theoretically provide extra confidentiality.

This decoupling is emblematic for Heddaumbrella problems. The film and the protagonist are too linear and simple, despite Dacosta’s attempts to draw the material in the present through the lens of social evolutions in the mid -20th century. The subtextual is constantly housed by the open – if there is subtext. This makes visual flowering like warm tones and even stylish double dollies (à la Spike Lee) practically reliable, despite the theoretically seducing the nature of every technique. Hedda Speaks in easily understandable double grafters, and when it is time to explain her tricks, her chaotic decision -making in simplistic terms is explained. The naughty score of Hildur Guðnadóttir absorbs breathable whisper, but at any time does Hedda Feel like a film of secrets, even if it has the presentation of one. Everything the film is or does exists on the surface, an approach that is hardly enough to maintain interest or to intrigue more than a few minutes at the same time.

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