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Tessa Thompson stars in Nia DaCosta's sexy modern take on Ibsen's love triangle tragedy Certificate: 18 Ibsen's plays are known for being brilliant but depressing. Writer-director Nia DaCosta tries to get around the latter issue by injecting the doomed love triangle Hedda Gabler (now simply 'Hedda') with a stylish, nasty and sexy energy that places it somewhere between The Great Gatsby and Saltburn. There are other substantial changes to the original. The money-loving Hedda (Tessa Thompson) now lives in upper-class 20th-century Britain, not 19th-century Norway, and the lover who returns to threaten her marriage of convenience to desperate-to-please George (Tom Bateman) is a woman, not a man. Step forward Eileen, played by the excellent Nina Hoss (Tár), a once-boozy older woman who is now in a clear-headed relationship with the kind Thea (Imogen Poots). Will Hedda stand for her ex being happy with someone else while her own voracious needs go unmet? Will she heck - and a festival of manipulation ensues, with Thompson clearly having an awful lot of fun as the woman pulling all the strings. Hoss, too, is on scene-stealing form as Eileen, in a story that's much more about women than Ibsen's original was. Do keep an ear out for the line 'Come on Eileen' in a film that can feel like it's set permanently at 11, which will be too much for some but great fun for others. (107 minutes)
