‘100 Nights of Hero’ review: Charli XCX hasn’t found the right movie yet

“Are you ready? Then we'll begin.”

This narration, over an image of three moons hanging in the sky, begins Julia Jackman's 100 Nights of a Hero, which she adapted and directed from Isabelle Greenberg's 2016 graphic novel. This means we're in for a level of heightened, self-reflective fantasy storytelling, and in fact, the revolutionary power of storytelling itself is the beating heart of this film.

Jackman takes his own stylistic approach to 100 Nights of a Hero without copying Greenberg's aesthetic. You can almost immediately tell that this fantasy film has a feminine touch in its colorful, highly stylized look and sound; there's a certain girlish wit to the bright pink tones and the concentration of female narratives in campy compositions. The story takes place in a secluded, cult-like community that worships their god, Birdman (Richard E. Grant(in a cameo role) and forms his patriarchal society around the usual principles: control of women, production of heirs.

Young bride Cherry (Maika Monroe) is married to Jerome (Amir El-Masry), and although he claims they are trying to have a baby, they are not. It is a pity that she will be the one who suffers the consequences of her unsuccessful attempt to become pregnant. Soon the hard worker Manfred (Nikolay Golitsyn) appears, and the two men make a cruel bet: Manfred will spend 100 nights in the castle to seduce Cherry while Jerome is away on business. If he fails, he will have to find a child for Jerome, who is not interested in sex with women. If Manfred succeeds, he will receive the castle. But if Cherry deviates, she will be hanged. (As expected, this is a lose-lose situation for the wife.)

There is one person on Cherry's side, Hero (Emma Corrin), her cunning maid who distracts Manfred from his goal by telling the story of three sisters engaged in the “sinful, evil and absolutely forbidden” (for women) pleasure of reading and writing. One of the sisters, Rose (Charlie XCX), married to a merchant who soon discovers his “witchcraft”.

Each night, the Hero opens a new chapter about the three sisters, their story intertwined with that of Cherry and Manfred, while we discover that the Hero is part of the League of Secret Storytellers: women who collect stories and weave them into tapestries, their work hiding their true intentions as the stories are passed from ear to ear.

The issues here are basic and elemental: the trials and tribulations of sex, marriage, fidelity and childbearing. Although brides are locked in castles and men in bird masks want to burn witches, the story is not entirely out of our time and place. The pressure to “produce an heir” lives on in current pronatalist arguments and “traditional wife” discourse, and control of women's bodies – and minds – is necessary to achieve the goal of producing more and more children. This tale does not seem so ancient or fantastic at all.

However, there are small nuances in the narrative of 100 Nights of a Hero. For teenagers, it's a bit like feminism, a youthful approach to explaining how liberating the mind is necessary to liberating the body. The film is harsh and obvious to its detriment. Its whimsical, luxurious aesthetic can only withstand such exercise for so long.

As our interest wanes over the course of this 90-minute modernist fable, Manfred begins to slip away—natural for a tale that seeks to deprioritize men. Unfortunately, Golitsyn's screen presence is too strong to ignore, and we notice his absence. Perhaps it's because Manfred is so self-assured, Golitsyn's embodiment of fluid sensuality stands in stark contrast to Monroe's tough, unsettling, raucous performance as Cherry.

The most powerful image of the film, consisting of interesting shots, is Golitsyn, covered in blood, dragging home a freshly killed deer for dinner. If the film is about women discovering their pleasure and sensuality outside of men, they shouldn't have made Manfred the most attractive and down-to-earth character on screen.

While 100 Nights of a Hero has an attractive cast and beautiful visuals, its storytelling (about the power of storytelling) is unfortunately less than compelling. The relevance of the message is clear, but the delivery leaves much to be desired.