The “universally panned” cult movie Tessa Thompson still adores: “It’s been influential”
As part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tessa Thompson’s been involved in some of the highest-grossing movies ever made, but she’s no slouch from a critical standpoint either.
Her performance in Nia DaCosta’s Hedda (which she also produced) received rave reviews, including a nomination for ‘Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama’ at the 2026 Golden Globes, but of course, it hasn’t always been sunshine and rainbows.
For as much as Marvel has done for Thompson’s career, she has been forced to appear in some of their worst output (anyone wanna watch The Marvels again? Or Thor: Love and Thunder?) Her take on another famous franchise didn’t go much better since Men in Black: International was a disappointment in every sense of the word, with a follow-up starring Will Smith in the works to wash the taste out of people’s mouths, hopefully.
However, she doesn’t seem to be too bothered about critical reviews, as she explained to Collider, one of her all-time favourite movies, Harold and Maude, was torn to shreds when it first hit the big screen.
“It was universally panned [when it came out],” she said, “It took almost a decade before audiences got it, and now, the film has a cult following, and it’s been influential for so many directors that we know and love…”
Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude is a fascinatingly twisted take on the quest for the meaning of life, which sees Bud Cort’s Harold, a troubled young man blindly obsessed with the concept of death, meet Ruth Gordon’s Maude, a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor whose own passion is living life to the fullest.
Despite their age difference, the two form a relationship, each one bringing a different perspective on life’s final chapter to the other. As Thompson alluded to, critics simply didn’t get it when it first came out in 1971, and these days, it’s considered a bona fide classic. Commentators rave about its uniquely black sense of humour, strong character dynamics, and unexpectedly heart-warming conclusion, which led to it in 1997 being selected for preservation by the US National Film Registry.
If anyone ever doubted Thompson’s affection for Harold and Maude, they should check out the name of her production company, called Viva Maude, named after Gordon’s character. To the modern star, her forerunner represents the classic ‘manic pixie dream girl’ archetype, but with a significant twist.
“For my money, she’s one of the first occurrences of this trope,” she opined, “This woman who comes into a depressive man’s life and turns it around with her zest for life and vivaciousness. But she herself disrupts the trope because she happens to be a woman in her late 80s who also has a death wish.”
Movie history is littered with examples of slow burners, so many movies that we consider to be untouchable today were met with lukewarm or even negative responses when they first came out. Context is so important to how a film is received, and context can change wildly over time, such that Tessa Thompson might have hated Harold and Maude had she seen it when it first came out, but what we know for sure is that she can’t get enough of it now.
