100 Nights of Hero (2025)

With mankind under the rule of the “Birdman” (a brief cameo from Richard E. Grant) and his “Beaked Brother” enforcers, rules are very strict about married couple’s requirements to procreate. These regulations are proving a problem for “Cherry” (Maika Monroe) who’s marriage to “Jerome” (Amir El-Masry) is going precisely nowhere on that front. He’ll be fine regardless, but she’s for the high jump if she doesn’t conceive. Then, as luck would have it, his mischievous best pal “Mannfred” (Nicholas Galitzine) arrives and they make a drunken bet that if “Jerome” goes away on business for one hundred nights, his friend will successfully manage to seduce his wife. Off he goes leaving his cocky pal confident that his good looks and charm with soon will through. Unbeknownst to him, “Cherry” has a secret weapon. Her maid-with-benefits “Hero” (Emma Corrin) has perfected the art of storytelling. Anytime her mistress is under pressure from her guest, she regales them with the intriguing tale of “Rosa”. In true “1001 Nights” style the story takes it’s time to tell and has a few unexpected effects on just about everyone, but can this tactic stave off their ardours until “Jerome” gets home? This is a stylishly produced enterprise with plenty of effort put into the design, but the story is terribly thin and incomplete. We don’t really get to grips with the mysticism of the plot nor with the issues around literacy in a masculine (and zealous) society that underpin much of the story. Monroe does well enough and Corrin does have something about her, but it is disappointingly under-cooked. Galitzine, meantime, has a bit of a glint in his eye and there is one scene with El-Masry that briefly got my hopes up near the start, but sadly that fizzles out just as much of the rest of this does and in the end we are left with something more akin to a pantomime than a thoughtful drama.