New Prime Video movie Hedda made me ask myself some difficult questions, but none as tricky as what I asked its cast

I wonder if we care about the wrong parts of Hedda

29 Oct 2025 · TechRadar

Features By Jasmine Valentine published 29 October 2025

Tessa Thompson plays our leading lady in Prime Video's romantic drama Hedda. (Image credit: Prime Video)

If you've already been lucky enough to read my Hedda review after seeing the new Prime Video movie (which released in select theaters on October 24 ahead of its streaming release on October 29), you might know what I mean when I say it's terribly fun, but terribly serious.

An adaptation of the famed Henrik Ibsen play Hedda Gabler for the modern age, Hedda sees Tessa Thompson star as our leading lady, embroiled in both a plot to get her husband George (Tom Bateman) the work promotion he wants, and a love triangle with George's rival Eileen (Nina Hoss) and her new lover Thea (Imogen Poots).

We see both play out during a wild party Hedda hosts to George to win over Professor Greenwood (Finbar Lynch), which descends into a drink and drug fueled chaos. Think sex scandal, skinny dipping and a shootout that may or may not lead to fatality (no spoilers here).

While watching, I was as immersed in the excitement as much as any guest actually attending Hedda's soiree, but the more I thought about the new movie, the more I was left with conflicting feelings.

Director Nia DaCosta's vision for Hedda includes gender-swapped characters (Eileen was originally a man called Ejlert), a lesbian love triangle, and a non-white lead. As a queer woman, I immediately latch onto these changes. How can I not watch Nina Hoss as another haughty lesbian after her star turn in 2022 movie Tár?

But then I came across this fantastic interview by the Independent with DaCosta and Thompson where one quote struck me: "I feel hesitant sometimes to politicize any of these things but then I realize things end up being politicized sometimes just by virtue of what you look like or who you are,” Thompson says.

I then realized that audiences might be taking away the wrong message from Hedda. Of course it's wonderful that DaCosta has effortlessly intertwined representation through the movie, but are we doing the work as a whole a disservice by prioritising these details as the most important in the film?

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