We are living through what we could call Charli xcx’s “movie” era. The wheels were set in motion a long time ago—even before brat went stratospheric—and the fruits of her labor are finally being seen. 100 Nights of Hero, a fantastical period comedy-drama directed by Julia Jackman (whose debut Bonus Track, produced by Josh O’Connor, we loved), debuted at the Venice Film Festival this week. The films is based on a beloved graphic novel from Isabel Greenberg and takes place in fantastical, Elizabethans-on-shrooms era. Despite Miss xcx’s name being a leading (and maybe misleading) factor in the way the movie has been talked about since it’s announcement—guilty!—Charli plays a small, if important part in what feels like one of the year’s most intriguing, original films.
Made for just $4 million, it also feels like a feat of indie filmmaking: a period fantasy film crafted with a budget most major studios would dedicate to an elaborate dinner party. At a Miu Miu event earlier at the festival, its lead Emma Corrin spoke about how fun it was to do a job in which everyone rolled up their sleeves and mucked in. Jackman’s script is all they had, but they knew that labor would transform into something worthwhile.
Corrin plays Hero, a maid in an elaborate manor who hatches a scheme for her lady. Cherry (Maika Monroe) is freshly married to Jerome (Amir El-Masry), but has yet to consummate the relationship. If she doesn’t she’ll be sentenced to death by the god of this twisted universe, a bird-beaked Richard E. Grant. When Jerome leaves for a work trip, Hero brings in Manfred, a zany, sexy lord (Nicholas Galitzine) and promises him control of the manor if he can successfully seduce Cherry in 100 nights.
So for 90 zippy minutes, Manfred tries his best to chip away at Cherry’s temptations, while Hero, in an elaborate distraction, tells stories of the women that came before them—the ones who lived through the same child-rearing subjugation these women do now. If it sounds heavy-handed, it’s not: the film prickles and fizzes in all the right places, pacy and engaging and often stunning to look at. Shot at Knebworth House (the site of many legendary English gigs from the likes of Oasis and Robbie Williams), the Tudor-era building and its gardens transform into something otherworldly, replete with masked guards and foreboding art, a place constantly bathed in an unsettling violet glow.
It’s in one of these flashback storylines that Charli XCX comes into the picture. She’s been framed (mostly by excitable movie stans) as a lead, but she appears only briefly, playing one of three sisters who were scorned for their desire to communicate through reading and writing. She may not say much, but she handles the dramatic heft when it comes. She’s an actor!
It’s the silly, spicy, somewhat sapphic dance between Monroe and Corrin’s characters—with Galitzine’s deliciously campy interjections—that makes 100 Nights of Hero such a dishy romp. Getting independent movies made in Britain is an increasingly hard task, and it’s reassuring that award winners and A-listers are willing to throw their weight behind small-budgeted, big-brained films. Creating elaborate set pieces like a night sky with three moons on an economical scale is practically impossible, and Jackman’s creative team—production designer Sofia Sacomani, costume designer Susie Coulthard, and many others—do it well.
But they wouldn’t have done it without Jackman’s own brazen idea to build a beautiful world from scratch. The film might be based on a graphic novel, which itself was based on the folk tales One Thousand and One Nights, but the live world that surrounds Corrin, Monroe, and Galitzine feels wholly original. Ambitious and lively, it’s wearing its bold message well, winking and feeling earnest in all the right places. I could watch it again tomorrow.