“We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” Joan Didion famously penned in “The White Album.” Nowhere has the maxim been truer than in the tale of Scheherazade, the narrator of the Arabic folktales “A Thousand and One Nights,” whose cliffhanger narratives prevented her execution by a covetous king. Centuries later, that influence has continued to persist and morph into exciting new forms, such as Julia Jackman’s queer and feminist historical fantasy “100 Nights of Hero.”
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Jackman’s film might be a copy of a copy: it’s based on Isabel Greenberg’s graphic novel “The One Hundred Nights of a Hero,” which is itself inspired by the Arabian Knights. But its zippy stylings never feel derivative or overly familiar. Watching this adaptation is like getting caught up inside a storybook drama designed for adults, maintaining a mythic quality while harnessing the complexities of reality. (To put it more bluntly, “100 Nights of Hero” has an understanding of sexuality that goes beyond merely “true love’s kiss.”)
Tying the action together is Emma Corrin’s titular Hero, a perceptive court servant whose name feels ironic and altogether fitting. She attends to Maika Monroe’s Cherry, the lady of a make-believe medieval manor lorded over by a fertility-obsessed figure known as Birdman (a very amusing Richard E. Grant). Her husband Jerome (Amir El-Masry) puts her in a tight spot by pointedly refusing to consummate their marriage, heightening the scrutiny Cherry faces from the patriarchal powers.
However, the dynamic shifts when Jerome strikes a deal with the dashing but dastardly Manfred (Nicholas Galitzine). Their wager is a no-win for Cherry even as she comprises its center. If Manfred can seduce her, Jerome will sacrifice her and forfeit his castle. But if he can’t, then she can go on living—if their nuptials even constitute much of a life.
The ever-perceptive Hero rises to the occasion and intervenes to help Cherry, even if she does not entirely recognize the gravity of the stakes. She begins to narrate the fictional yarn of Rosa (Charli XCX), the youngest of three sisters in a spiritually similar bind. The trio finds strength through storytelling, creating an archive of resistance in their defiant literacy. Like the best of narratives, Hero and Cherry find themselves moved not only to listen as escapist fantasy but also to let it influence their own growing sense of rebellion.
As it becomes clear that the two women are the latest chapter in a book that precedes them (and will extend beyond them), the ceiling of “100 Nights of Hero” comes into focus. It’s never twee or trite, but the film ultimately gets hemmed in by the organizing principle of its fairytale origins. This narrative mode both inflates the stakes of the action in line with the film’s vibrant color palette and makes them feel just as artificial.
But if Jackman heightens any archetypes, it’s so she can later deepen the emotion with surprising moments of unguarded revelation. “100 Nights of Hero” never descends into the easy archness of ironic distance, even as it renders familiar and persistent predicaments into the stuff of legend. There’s a humanity that always peeks out through droll line readings and the period trappings alike.
The film demonstrates the real value of rigorous direction: breaking the rules to which the actors adhere. The witty humor of “100 Nights of Hero,” established early by Felicity Jones’ breakneck narration and clever cutaway visual gags, might initially appear to have little on its mind beyond satirizing recognizable medieval archetypes. But these conventions cede way to a much richer tapestry of emotionality once the characters’ initial range of motion becomes clear. The maid, the damsel, and the himbo are all more than meets the eye.
Hero’s tale resonates with Cherry because that wellspring of organic feeling cannot help but peek out through the constructs of her storytelling. Jackman achieves a similar effect with “100 Nights of Hero,” both through her whimsically wonderful aesthetic and within the figures who populate it. A story is not just a means to get through life, she argues. They are the essence of what it means to be alive at all. [B]
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New York-based freelance journalist whose writing appears regularly on Decider, Slant, Slashfilm, and The Playlist, covering film with a focus on cultural context.
