100 Nights of Hero takes a feminist look at the Scheherazade story and turns it into a fairy tale about women’s power, women’s love, and women’s stories. It’s a fun watch for women, but I’m not sure men will enjoy it.

100 Nights of Hero stars Maika Monroe as Cherry. Cherry lives in a world where a woman marries because that’s her only choice. She must bear children immediately or she will be killed by the beaked brothers who run the world and use religion to set the rules.

Cherry’s husband is Jerome (Amir El-Masry). After several months of marriage, Jerome has yet to consummate the union. Jerome likes the handsome fellows he hangs out with better than his wife, you see. But Jerome’s choice of companions has put Cherry’s life in danger.

Cherry’s maid Hero (Emma Corrin) looks after her. The two are close, but not that close, yet. (It’s coming, worry not. Hero enlists herself to show Cherry what a man would do to her, should a man ever touch her. Hero’s a hit.)

Manfred (Nicholas Galitzine) shows up at the door. He needs a place to stay for a while. Manfred has successfully seduced many woman. He’s confident of his skills. Jerome offers to stay away for 100 days if Manfred will “take care” of his wife. If Manfred succeeds, he gets the castle and everything it in for himself.

This plan might have worked, except for Cherry’s reluctance and Hero’s plan to protect her from men. She offers to distract Manfred every night with a story. Hero belongs to a secret society of women who can read and write (forbidden) and who have a backlog of stories to tell.

The story takes place on a planet with three moons. The smallest and prettiest moon is the narrator (Felicity Jones) of the story. She’s also the woman in the moon who provides a safe place for Cherry and Hero after their Thelma and Louise ending. Women in this movie jump off cliffs to their doom–willingly. I never understood it in Thelma and Louise, and I don’t understand it now.

100 Nights of Hero looks at a patriarchal world where men use religion to control behavior. Religious leaders wear bird beaks and have the power to murder women who don’t behave according to their rules. Women can only be themselves and express their full potential in secret. There’s one role, only one, for women. Any woman who wants to deviate from that is punished.

I haven’t mentioned anything about the 100-night-long story Hero tells. It is a feminist story within a story. All the guards who listened along with Manfred every night spread the story around the community. Community story-lovers joined together to protest (#resist) the beaked men’s plan to destroy Cherry and Hero.

The film was directed by Julia Jackson. You can see it on AMC+, Sundance Now, or rent it from Prime Video. If you watch it, I’d love to know if you thought it was as clever and fun as I did.