Hedda (15)

Tessa Thompson has never been better as the titular not-so-desperate housewife in Nia DaCosta’s bold reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s timeless play.

Thompson (giving a performance so commanding that it seems to reshape the molecules around her) is Hedda, as a sensual free spirit with a manipulative streak; she has just cynically settled for marriage to well-born but bland academic George Tesman (Tom Bateman) because it will allow her to live in luxury in this huge house in which they are throwing a decadent party. But the awful truth is that George has mortgaged himself up to the eyeballs for this place – so he simply must get a lucrative, newly vacant professorship to pay the debt.

But it's not until the film’s midway point that Thompson is matched by the luminous Nina Hoss, who alters the course of the glamorous party. As Eileen Løvborg, Hedda’s former lover, Hoss marches towards impending tragedy, seemingly unable to regain the upper hand in their relationship. But beyond the gender flipping of Eilert to Eileen, queerness flows through with sexual tension between virtually all the attendees. Hedda is a stylish, gorgeous film; one not to be missed