If the new Prime Video movie Hedda reminds you of Saltburn, you’re not the only one – but the cast don’t see it

For some lucky US cinephiles, Hedda is already showing in select theatres. For everyone else, the new movie is coming to Prime Video on October 29 – and there might just be another film on the streaming service that it reminds you of.

Based on the famed Ibsen play of the same name, director Nia DaCosta transforms a story we’ve heard countless times into something fresh, prompting us to ask brand-new questions. Over the course of one night at a raucous mansion party, there’s deceit, a love triangle, and inappropriate power dynamics at play.

Hedda cast ‘never thought about parallels’ with Saltburn while shooting – but they talked about it

Hedda – Official Trailer | Prime Video – YouTube

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“No. Only because they’re very different,” star Tom Bateman, who stars as George Tesman, tells me when I ask him if the Saltburn–Hedda headlines are fair.

“I mean, the only thing I can see similar is a big party that takes place in a manor house. It’s sort of like a similar aesthetically that way. Maybe there is, because of the tensions and complexities between people, the secrets, whatever relation and the manipulation controlling of other people.”

Nicholas Pinnock, who plays Judge Roland, chimes in, “It’s funny, because I think when we were shooting this, we actually talked about Saltburn quite a lot, because it had come out as we were filming. We talked about certain moments. I guess I’ve weirdly never thought about the parallel beyond that.”

I can’t say it’s surprising that Saltburn was brought up, given how much of a watercooler effect it had. But here’s where they differ: Saltburn‘s party scene was brief but completely chaotic frivolity, indulging in pure hedonism until it crashed head-on into life-changing disaster.

In the case of Hedda, the party is everything… and I mean everything. It’s the reason the story exists in the first place, and it serves as a battleground for calculated, restrained sabotage. Hedda (Tessa Thompson) throws the party to get George the promotion he wants, but decides to make everybody else’s lives more difficult in the process.