The Danish Girl Review

8 out of 10

The Danish Girl Cast:

Eddie Redmayne as Einar Wegener / Lili Elbe

Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener

Matthias Schoenaerts as Hans Axgil

Ben Whishaw as Henrik

Amber Heard as Oola Paulson

Adrian Schiller as Rasmussen

Sebastian Koch as Warnekros

Rebecca Root as Lili’s Nurse

Emerald Fennell as Elsa 

Directed by Tom Hooper   

Story:

In the mid-20s, Danish painter Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne) is married to his beautiful artist wife Gerda (Alicia Vikander) who sometimes has him dress up in women’s clothing to model for her paintings. Einar soon learns that he likes being a woman, creating the persona of “Lili,” but his feelings become more conflicted once he realizes he was born the wrong gender and it starts to cause friction with his supportive wife as he starts to explore his/her options.

Analysis:

Maybe it’s partially due to the amount of news hours spent on Caitlyn Jenner earlier this year that every movie about LGBT issues is getting more attention than they might otherwise, especially the “T for transgender” part of that label.

Those who try to claim Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, starring recent Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne and 2015 “It Girl” Alicia Vikander, as groundbreaking clearly have already forgotten films like Duncan Tucker’s Transamerica (for which actress Felicity Huffman received an Oscar nod) and the even more underrated 2011 film Pariah. They also may have missed Francois Ozon’s recent The New Girlfriend, which had the luxury of exploring similar themes in a far less heavy way than as The Danish Girl by being entirely fictional.

The fact is that movies about transgender and cross-dressing men and women shouldn’t be treated as if they were some sort of trend or anomaly, which may be one of the reasons why The Danish Girl works as well as it does, because Danish artist, author and transgender hero Lili Elbe is treated as any other person in history who has an interesting story to tell should be.

Even so, it’s going to be hard not to be overly-cynical about a film that seems to be trying to recreate the same Oscar fodder formula as director Tom Hooper’s Oscar winning film The King’s Speech as well as Redmayne’s The Theory of Everything.

The Danish Girl intends to tell the story of the first transgender operation and Einar/Lili’s influence on the transgender movement, but it’s as much about the relationship with his wife Gerda (Alicia Vikander). While it’s yet another movie about real-life married painters, it isn’t another Big Eyes thankfully, because painting plays a fairly small albeit significant part in Lili’s journey. Although Eddie Redmayne’s Einar Wegener is a renowned painter in Denmark, it’s his wife Gerda’s painting that contributes to his realization that he should be a woman as she has him dressing up as women to model for her.

Gerda and their mutual friend, a ballet dancer named Oola (Amber Heard), even come up with a name for Einar’s female form, “Lili,” and a prank to have Lili attend a party in Einar’s place backfires slightly when she starts getting the attention of a handsome young man named Henrik (Ben Whishaw), who may or may not realize it’s really Einar under the make-up.

As it happens, Gerda’s portraits of Lili start becoming more popular than her husband’s landscapes–okay, maybe this movie is more like Big Eyes than I admitted earlier–but by that point, Einar/Lili has become tormented by the difficult place he’s found himself as a woman living in a man’s body, and Gerda remains supportive but divided about potentially losing her husband.

Coming so soon after his Oscar-winning turn for The Theory of Everything, it’s hard not to be equally impressed by Redmayne’s portrayal of Lili’s struggle, although it’s one that may be harder for viewers to understand since gender dysphoria isn’t something most people have to deal with, while others struggle with it their entire lives. (Look at the aforementioned Caitlyn Jenner who finally decided to do something about her own identity crisis after 65 years of silent suffering.) The Danish Girl isn’t just Redmayne’s show, though, and Alicia Vikander continues the amazing run she’s been having with roles in Ex Machina, Testament of Youth and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., conveying a similarly undeniable presence on screen as Gerda, whose feelings are almost as complicated as Lili’s own.

Many biodramas fail because they get bogged down by supporting characters and storylines, but Hooper is smart enough to keep things simple and tightly focused on the relationship between Einar/Lili and Gerda. There isn’t a single scene in The Danish Girl that feels wasteful or unnecessary, which is very rare even in the best biodramas ever made.

Matthias Schoenarts plays the most significant other role as a mutual friend who may have a romantic interest in either or both, but The Danish Girl doesn’t have the time or wherewithal to waste time on an obvious romantic triangle, and it would make even less sense once it starts dealing with the dangerous first-time operation Lili must undergo to get the body she feels is the one she should have.

Hooper continues to impress with his ability to create a lush and grand film even while dealing with fairly small and intimate subjects like identity and sexuality, and his latest film looks as gorgeous as anything else out there with a score by Alexandre Desplat to match it. The intention is to draw as much emotion out of the viewer as possible and for the most part, it works. A movie like this could have easily been weighed down in maudlin melodrama, but it somehow avoids it despite how difficul it is watching Lili’s horrible ordeal to find her true identity. 

The Bottom Line:

You have to commend Hooper and his cast for taking what might be a fairly unrelatable situation (for most) and making it moving and affecting. Sure, The Danish Girl is wanton Oscar fodder, but a well-made movie is a well-made movie however you slice it.