Hedda Ending Explained: Stars Discuss Tessa Thompson's Ambiguous Fate

Warning: Major SPOILERS lie ahead for Hedda!

After plenty of manipulation and seduction, Hedda comes to a very heated conclusion, though Tessa Thompson’s fate is a little more open to interpretation. The film, written and directed by Nia DaCosta, revolves around the titular character as she and her new husband, George, host a party at their opulent mansion, which is thrown into disarray when a woman with major ties to both Hedda and George’s past arrives.

Much like Henrik Ibsen’s namesake play, Hedda‘s ending sees Thompson’s titular character facing the consequences of her various mind games when Nina Hoss’ Eileen Lövborg incidentally uses the gun given to her to commit suicide in a confrontation, being mortally wounded with a shot to the stomach. Additionally, Nicholas Pinnock’s Judge Brack, having discovered her to be behind the destruction of Eileen’s manuscript and injury, tries to blackmail her and force himself on her, to which she decides to take some stones and drown herself in the nearby lake.

Ahead of the movie’s release, ScreenRant‘s Liam Crowley interviewed Tom Bateman and Nina Hoss to discuss Hedda. When asked their thoughts on the movie’s ending, in which Thompson’s titular character is seen staring into the camera before actually submerging in the water, Hoss admitted she didn’t “want to interpret the ending“, but does find interest in the circular nature of Eileen and Hedda’s story:

Nina Hoss: I just find it interesting that Eileen always pulls her out of the water. At the beginning when she’s on the phone and at the end. Because it’s not done yet. And I love that. I find that suits the time. I think they should have the right to have another go.

Bateman similarly found that the “cyclical” theme of the film brings a “Greek tragedy” feeling to the proceedings, comparing it to the way Romeo and Juliet has an introduction from William Shakespeare in which “he tells you the plot at the beginning“. The star then pointed out how the film ends on a similar note to how it starts with Hedda’s attempted self-drowning, before confirming that Thompson’s character survives in the movie’s ending. Check out the rest of Bateman’s discussion below:

Tom Bateman: You get a feeling that even though she doesn’t, yes, spoiler, she doesn’t take her own life, you feel like God, in a way, she’s trapped in this prison. They all are. They’re just going to go around this carousel of whatever. Yeah. They’re going to be there forever.

Though taking a fairly faithful approach to her reimagining of the source material, DaCosta does make a few key changes to her Hedda adaptation. In addition to flipping Lövborg’s gender from a man to a woman, the writer/director also compresses the story into a single night, leaves out a character entirely, and more directly confirms the titular character’s involvement in the disappearance of, and subsequent destruction of, Eileen’s manuscript.

Hedda‘s ending, though, is arguably the biggest deviation from the play. Despite a similar build-up to, and overall motivation for, her desire to take her life, Thompson’s character more explicitly uses a gun to shoot herself, with the play ending as other characters discover her body.

With the film electing to take a more ambiguous approach to its ending, Hoss and Bateman’s comments showcase the interesting ways Hedda can be interpreted. While they both agree there’s a cyclical nature to the character’s final decision, Hoss’ note that Eileen “always pulls her out of the water” could indicate that Hedda ultimately takes George’s shouting of Eileen waking up to be the motivator to keep on living.

However, with Bateman denoting that the characters are going to continue “to go around this carousel“, there’s still a very good chance that, even with her survival, Hedda‘s ending is still a dark one for all involved. Thompson’s character may come out of the water, but she could very well take Eileen living as a motive to continue manipulating those around her for her whims, or go on living for her and George’s unborn child, staying in a loveless marriage.