Week Ending 12/19/25

Hedda Tesman née Gabler (Tessa Thompson) is seemingly taking a dip in the lake behind her new estate when Nia DaCosta's Hedda (a reimagining of Henrik Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler") begins. Upon hearing that Eileen Lovborg (Nina Hoss) is on the phone, she exits the water and makes her way up to the house—dropping a series of stones from her dress along the way. Was this "dip" therefore an attempt at suicide? A cry for help? And mere hours before the party Hedda and her husband (Tom Bateman's George) are throwing to mark their union?

The reason Eileen's name shakes her from this depressive funk is initially believed to be because she's the "one who got away." An ex-lover recalling a moment in Hedda's life before the patriarchal norms of society finally won out over her ambitious desire to be nonconforming. As we learn more about her temperament and the details surrounding the end of their affair (unwittingly helped by Eileen's current partner's, Imogen Poots' Thea, belief Hedda is someone she can trust), however, it proves to be about a whole lot more.

DaCosta speaks about falling in love with Ibsen's classic only to watch stage adaptations and wonder why everything that spoke to her was left out. So, she decided to craft an adaptation of her own that made "the subtext into text" and preserved the humor she so fervently latched onto. The result is a unique interpretation turning the titular protagonist into the bastard Black child of a renowned general and her ex Ejlert into a woman. I've never read the original, but it appears most of the plot points remain intact through this new lens.

The whole gives off a wonderful Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? energy that I embraced from the first frame. This notion that Hedda is playing a game for which only she knows the rules. A game whose theatrics we can revel in even as we don't quite understand the motive yet. Is she trying to win Eileen back and sabotage her marriage? Does she shift to ruining Eileen's new relationship upon learning of Thea's love? To defaming her career upon discovering she's up for the same professorship as George? Or, perhaps, just some unfinished business?

We float around the mansion as the guests arrive. Judge Roland Brack (Nicholas Pinnock), Hedda's unofficial guardian with lecherous intent. Professor Greenwood (Finbar Lynch), the man in charge of hiring for the position George needs to afford the lavish lifestyle his wife demands and Eileen covets for academic validation. Thea's unannounced appearance in hopes of serving as Eileen's conscience, knowing her lover's sobriety will be tested in full. And, finally, Eileen herself with a game-changing manuscript to secure the job.

We see the gears spinning inside Hedda's brain each time one of them speaks with her to intentionally or accidentally (there's a reason she plies them all with alcohol) divulge a fresh morsel of information that will either cement her plans or ignite a fresh diversion. They are her puppets, led around by their own vices to place themselves in compromising positions that will maintain her upper hand. The more out of control it gets, the wider Hedda's grin. The more George tries to intervene, the quicker she manifests a new distraction.

And since that initial dip in the water is actually the start of a rewind courtesy of a post-party police interrogation, there's also the looming assumption of tragedy. Add Hedda's penchant for firearms and the rumors of murderous thoughts ending her time with Eileen and our minds are forever racing to figure out who the victim might become. Yes, another gun enters the fray with inebriated jealousy at the trigger, but we know it's merely a red herring. Another nudge of chaos to clear the path for Hedda's selfish end game.

It will always be selfish, even if she attempts to make her actions seem like they are in service of someone else. Why? Because the target of those attempts are always the people for whose interests she pretends to be assisting. Eileen receives the best line of the film when describing this reality, telling George that his wife will never act on anyone's behalf but her own because that's who Hedda Gabler is and the fantasy of her ever becoming Hedda Tesman is mere illusion. And even then—even if she wins—boredom will inevitably lead her back to that lake.

DaCosta is working with a stacked cast (Kathryn Hunter's name isn't even included in the opening credits despite being on-screen while they unfold), but you know that Thompson and Hoss are going to soar above the rest no matter how great Pinnock, Poots, Bateman, and others are. Hedda is never more compelling than when those two are going toe-to-toe with every barb holding the extra context of an ever-present history forever etched in their faces. The mix of adoration and loathing. That compulsion to please the other via their cruelty.

The script wields this playful treachery as a dance that reveals everyone is acting on their own behalf. Eileen's reinvention at Thea's hand to ensure her brilliance isn't discredited. Thea's compassion to pull herself into Eileen's orbit once that shooting star erupts. George's promise to take care of his new wife to satisfy his yearning to be loved. Hedda might be the most conniving of them, but their individual agendas remain. She very easily controls moments, but power over her life never manifests. So, she languishes in wait for the start of the next game.

9/10

Bradley Cooper's Is This Thing On? (inspired by John Bishop's life and written by Cooper, Will Arnett, and Mark Chappell) is best encapsulated by a joke about the Olympics. Well, it's more like the punch line to a joke about the Olympics wherein Alex's (Arnett) verbal frustration hits his estranged wife (Laura Dern's Tess) with enough force to knock her back. But why? Did I miss the context? Did the filmmakers forget to add context? Or was it orchestrated to perfection?

I assume the latter because the very idea of presenting it punch line first, joke second, and context third expertly mirrors the dissolving relationship on-screen. We know Alex and Tess are splitting before we know why and we learn why before understanding how they got there. We're therefore not supposed to know why it hurt so much because him still seeing her as she was (what we don't yet know) rather than who she is now (what we do know) is their biggest problem.

This elegant structural device ensures its grounded yet breezy parallel mid-life crises dramedy is as messy as its characters (a compliment). The drama is sound (reinventing oneself for personal joy to escape conjoined unhappiness only to rediscover joy together), the comedy softens its heavy emotions, Arnett gets to act, Dern is great, and Cooper brilliantly takes the piss out of himself to laugh at everyone who believes he directs solely to win a Best Actor Oscar.

7/10

This is a fascinating look at the motivations behind turning real life into entertainment and the inherent exploitation a lack of nuance guarantees to inevitably help audiences lose their ability to tell the difference. It coming from a survivor who sought out "To Catch a Predator" to understand why his abuser did what they did only to realize how dangerous and gross the show proved ensures his psychological read on the format lands.

Does David Osit get us closer to finding that why? No. But he does implore the general populace to confront the why behind the popularity of copaganda shows and how law enforcement uses them to further expand their power and control by erasing empathy and turning the grayness of morality and humanity into a binary of one-dimensional good versus evil. Now give me the documentary connecting the dots from Chris Hansen to ICE kidnapping immigrants from their law-abiding court appointments.

Predators doesn't do that despite it often seeming like Osit wants to go there. It instead pulls the curtain on the artifice and shows the unforgivable cost to what Hansen did and how the police (and some courts) allowed him to do it. This subject is much bigger than ninety minutes allows, though, so the film plays like more of a table-turned "gotcha" moment of its own. It exposes the disingenuous nature of Hansen's pursuit for justice by forcing him to answer his own question: Why did you do this? It paid well and made him feel like a hero.

Hansen unironically calls his copycats "vigilantes" as a pejorative, but you know he has a "Batman" bracelet at home just like the one worn by Skeet's fake cop buddy.

7/10

Hikari and Stephen Blahut's script for Rental Family very smartly introduces the insane (to westerners) idea of a company renting out actors to fulfill a client's culturally traditional social needs via victimless examples. A fake funeral to feel loved. A fake marriage to satisfy parental wishes while securing an escape. We become charmed by their wholesomeness right alongside the newly recruited Phillip (Brendan Fraser). The concept feels like a wonderful gift.

Then we see Shinji Tada's (Takehiro Hira) other offerings—altruistic in theory yet morally questionable since the people getting helped don't know it. Mom hiring an "estranged father" to secure a young girl's (Shannon Mahina Gorman) private school enrollment, but telling her he's real to lend the interview authenticity. A daughter hiring a "journalist" to prove her aging father's (Akira Emoto) acting legacy remains relevant without considering what the ego boost might stir.

What was a cute premise about the act of helping curing the helper (Phillip is lonely in self-exile) suddenly reveals the pain of silent manipulations. Phillip teaches Shinji and Aiko (Mari Yamamoto) that help shouldn't be conditional on who pays because empathy can only coexist with capitalism if you're willing to put the job's purpose above the job itself. Before lying to alleviate your own frustration with a loved one's needs, try asking what it is they truly desire.

8/10

Anyone following Israel's ongoing assault on Gaza knows the name Hind Rajab. And anyone who recognizes her name knows her fate. So, the question posed when considering how to tell this six-year-old martyr's story is whether to do so via documentary conventions or cinematic dramatization. Both obviously have their own positives and negatives, but writer/director Kaouther Ben Hania's description of the latter says everything about their differences. "It doesn’t report, it remembers. It doesn’t argue, it makes you feel."

The Voice of Hind Rajab succeeds at exactly that—not just for its namesake, but also the Red Crescent members who worked tirelessly for three hours to secure her rescue. Because Hind's voice isn't the only one heard on the recordings from that day. There's also the man who made first contact (Motaz Malhees' Omar), his supervisor (Saja Kilani's Rana), the man in charge of coordinating a safe route for the ambulance (Amer Hlehel's Mahdi), and the resident Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Worker (Clara Khoury's Nisreen).

Their roles become the avenue towards drama since Ben Hania makes the correct choice to let Hind live solely through the calls themselves. The last thing we need is an actor for the camera to keep cutting to as she hides in a shot-up car with the bodies of her murdered family. We can imagine the terror of her situation and understand the trauma from her voice. What we need help learning are the logistics behind what the Red Crescent does and the emotional cost of doing it. Why did it take so long? What, if anything, went wrong?

Ben Hania constantly reminds us what we're watching is real by shifting from her actors to the footage at her disposal. Sometimes it's a few seconds of untouched audio. Sometimes the repetition of a moment that's heard for real right after we watched it performed. In one instance she even merges the two via a cellphone video wherein the screen filming the actors shows their actual counterparts as they mimic the same body positions in the background. The tension, frustration, and arguments are therefore all crafted from first-hand accounts.

It's a lot to take in. Omar's devastation from having heard Hind's cousin getting shot to death. Rana's fatigue from enduring this marathon of emotions despite having had one foot out the door at the end of her shift when the call came through. Mahdi's attempt to juggle the girl's wellbeing with that of his ambulance drivers considering the danger they risk entering a war zone opposite an Israeli military keen to shoot first and not bother asking questions later. Add Hind's mother begging for help and it can be unbearable.

All the more reason to keep watching and listening. All the more reason to bear witness and refuse to forget the senseless slaughter of innocent lives caught between a centuries-long conflict that's only become more volatile, skewed, and conflated with actual anti-Semitism thanks to an authoritarian ethnostate's propaganda machine being regurgitated as fact by numerous so-called world leaders. If what we see and hear on-screen isn't evidence of a war crime, do war crimes even exist? Shooting unarmed civilians? Blowing up an ambulance?

It's also a clear depiction of what Apartheid rule entails considering the Red Crescent helping those in need in Gaza are located fifty miles away with few remaining heroes left alive to keep doing their job. Hind's would-be saviors were located just eight minutes away from her car, but the only way to get them to her was to coordinate with the same army that had her pinned down as an enemy combatant. They need middle men with zero leverage power. At one point Mahdi all but blackmails assistance by calling an ambassador for a favor.

Yes, that tactic might have secured a green light quicker (if one was coming at all), but we're dealing with a genocidal government. Who's to say that the army didn't grant it to specifically blow-up the vehicle it was supposed to protect? There's no way to know and even less of a chance to find out when countries like the United States deem Israel trustworthy enough to police its own actions. This tragedy on January 29, 2024 wasn't the result of an accident. You can't keep saying Israel's military is the best in the world and still excuse this many "mistakes."

So, the Red Crescent must jump through their hoops. They must weigh the reality that they are dealing with situations devoid of good options. Because it's not just about the victim. It's also about the heroes. They must struggle with the fact that saving the future (Hind) and preserving the present (the ambulance drivers) aren't always aligned. Omar speaks out of anger when he calls Mahdi a coward for waiting on protocol and safety measures rather than barging in to get everyone killed, but there is a modicum of truth to it.

That's why this story is so devastating. It portrays the Palestinian futility of seeing the world numb itself to their extermination as well as the creeping sense of nihilism that comes from doing everything correctly only to fail again and again because the other side isn't playing fair. It's easy to get discouraged and look past the need to keep trying anyway. The role of films like The Voice of Hind Rajab is therefore to remind everyone that the work does matter. It exposes truths so that the next tragedy might be prevented.

8/10