Hedda

The abbreviated title of this Brut production (transposing Nunn's Royal Shakespeare Company staging of Ibsen's play) is the clue: leaving out the Gabler implies a Woman's Picture and the plastic surface of high-class soap opera. So it is for much of the time, with close-ups of Glenda Jackson reacting archly to the out-of-focus figures in the background. Luckily the supporting cast is outstanding; so that once the nods to opening out the play have been made, the film settles into its hypnotic story of manipulation and sexual tensions, with no fancy angles to obscure the power of Hedda's climactic burning of the Lovborg manuscript.