‘100 Nights of Hero’ Review: A Colorful, Zany Love Letter to Female Kinship
Independent Film Company
While page-to-screen adaptations have always proven popular across arthouse, blockbuster, and all cinema in between, 2025 has felt particularly rife with them, from Hamnet to Mickey 17 to Train Dreams. One of this year’s most distinctive, if not at times underwhelming, adaptations is Julia Jackman’s 100 Nights of Hero, reworked from a 2016 graphic novel of the same name. Flaunting a cast piled high with the likes of Emma Corrin, Maika Monroe, Charli XCX, and Richard E. Grant, 100 Nights of Hero transports audiences to an offbeat alternate universe where women, all too similarly to our own world, toil to share their own stories under the constraints of male authority. Despite its enticing setup, however, the film rarely expresses ideas or perspectives that feel particularly innovative.
In another existence, where three candy-colored moons dominate the night sky and a misogynistic deity known as Birdman (Grant) has poisoned humankind with his dubious ideals, lives Cherry (Monroe), a vision in white. We first meet her character in a courtroom of sorts, dominated by men, where she is given an ultimatum: fall pregnant within 101 nights, or be put to death for failing her womanly duties. There is a major problem here: her husband, Gerome (Amir El-Masry), has never held up his side of the deal in consummating their marriage, each night using “tomorrow” as his excuse.
When Gerome’s sleazy friend Manfred (Nicholas Galitzine, giving a bland performance bolstered by washboard abs) shows up one night, the two men scheme up an alarming plan with the air of devious adolescents. Gerome will go away on “business” for 100 nights, and Manfred will attempt to seduce Cherry. If Gerome wins, Manfred will secure him an heir; if Manfred wins, he will take Gerome’s estate. Ensnared in this twisted bet, Cherry turns to her maid and closest friend, Hero (Corrin), and her extraordinary storytelling abilities to aid in staving off Manfred’s advances and her own unspoken longings to be desired.
Independent Film Company
Jackman and her creative team take great pleasure in constructing the world and atmosphere of their movie, which feels somewhere between Poor Things and Orlando in the way it imbues an off-kilter period piece like you have never seen. Cinematographer Xenia Patricia’s compositions are often lit with unearthly pink tones that pair pleasingly with the disorienting influence of both Cherry’s growing lust and Hero’s intricate stories. This gauzy bubblegum flair, combined with the Tudor Gothic details of the shooting location (Knebworth House), sharply contrasts with the graphic novel’s severe monochrome aesthetics.
The film’s structure feels effervescent and ultra-witty through its dialogue and snappy editing, only to reach a strange doldrum as the “nested story” (loosely inspired by One Thousand and One Nights) approaches its finale. While Corrin maintains confident control as Hero, there is a lack of chemistry among her castmates, leaving much more to be desired in the twisted love triangle that begins to take shape. As the passing days are tallied like markings on a prison wall, an absence of palpable tension seems like a missed opportunity to ratchet up the sweaty anxieties descending upon Cherry’s castle.
100 Nights of Hero is most convincing when Jackman’s screenplay has the opportunity to explore the deep kinship between its central female characters. Although Monroe’s turn as Cherry offers little more than the wide-eyed timidity we have seen from her in works like It Follows and Longlegs, Corrin as Hero delivers all the knowing glances and unspoken consolation of a truly devoted friend, and possibly something more. Cherry and Hero are further united by “The Story of the Dancing Stones,” the tale of Rosa (Charli XCX) and her sisters, wrongfully admonished for an act “sinful, wicked, and absolutely forbidden for women.” Although the history books often omit the truth, women have always been at the forefront of revolutionary times (France, 1789; Russia, 1917; Argentina, 1977; the list continues). 100 Nights of Hero engages with this reality in admirable ways.
Independent Film Company
While 100 Nights of Hero may strive to offer fresh perspectives on gender inequality and female autonomy, its final outcome feels like territory all too commonly tread in recent cinema, failing to uncover any especially compelling concepts. Nonetheless, if you are looking for a dose of charming pleasure and visionary aesthetics, this idiosyncratic fairytale might deliver the theatrical experience you are seeking this holiday season.
3/5
90 minutes | Color | USA & England | in English
‘100 Nights of Hero’ premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival as part of its Critics’ Week program. The film will begin its U.S. theatrical release on Friday, December 5, courtesy of Independent Film Company. Click here for more information about '100 Nights of Hero.’