Trailer: Tessa Thompson’s Hedda Seems to Feature a Lesbian Love Triangle

By Jim Vorel  |  August 21, 2025 | 10:39am
Movies News nia dacosta
Trailer: Tessa Thompson’s Hedda Seems to Feature a Lesbian Love Triangle

Perhaps it should be no surprise that Henrik Ibsen’s classic play Hedda Gabler, first performed in Germany in January of 1891, contained no storyline at the time for its titular protagonist revolving around a lesbian love affair. Such subject matter would hardly have been condoned at the time, particularly for a married character, but subsequent versions and stagings of the play, occasionally shortened in title to simply Hedda, have moved the beloved story in a variety of evolving directions … including embracing a same sex subtext, among other things. Director Nia DaCosta (Candyman) clearly had that in mind as she took on the screenplay/direction of her own reimagining of the story for Prime Video, starring Tessa Thompson as the title character. Debuting its sultry first trailer today (which you can view below), Hedda‘s Oct. 29, 2025 release seems to promise a powerful, cathartic release. Or as the official synopsis puts it:

From writer/director Nia DaCosta comes a provocative, modern reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s classic play. HEDDA (Tessa Thompson) finds herself torn between the lingering ache of a past love and the quiet suffocation of her present life. Over the course of one charged night, long-repressed desires and hidden tensions erupt—pulling her and everyone around her into a spiral of manipulation, passion, and betrayal.

Hedda is a woman trapped in a dour, passionless marriage by the fact that she wanted to live a life of comfort, reckoning with the possibilities of what she has left behind, while influencing everyone around her to give in to their repressed desires. Seems like great material for the versatile and charismatic Thompson, joined here by an ensemble that also includes Imogen Poots, Tom Bateman, Nicholas Pinnock, Finbar Lynch, Mirren Mack and Nina Hoss as the character who seems to be her mysterious old flame, Eileen Lovborg.

One thing is for sure: The footage below certainly looks sumptuously designed, and it’s intriguing to see DaCosta branching out in this historical romance/drama direction considering her attachment to genre projects such as Candyman, The Marvels and the upcoming 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. DaCosta likely picked a good moment here to flesh out her filmography and show some more versatility; we’ll be looking forward to seeing how sumptuous Hedda can be when it arrives on Oct. 29, 2025 on Prime Video. Check out the first trailer below.

 
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