The Danish Girl

THE DANISH GIRL

Director : Tom Hooper
Year : 2016
Genre : Drama
Rating : ****

After stunning audiences worldwide with his Academy Award winning performance in 'The Theory Of Everything', Eddie Redmayne once again dazzles in the powerfully poignant and wonderfully compelling biopic 'The Danish Girl', an exquisitely photographed and beautifully told picture from 'The King's Speech' and 'Les Miserables'  director Tom Hooper. Telling the somewhat sanitized true story of Einer Wegener, the first known recipient of sexual reassignment therapy, the film manages to move and entertain in equal measure and while seen by some harsher critics as nothing but a worthy and pretentious awards hungry prestige film, 'The Danish Girl' manages to rise above it's potentially irksome limitations and instead presents itself as a deeply truthful and emotionally honest portrait of a man who would unwittingly go on to change the course of human sexuality forever.

The story of 'The Danish Girl' takes place, as the title would suggest, in 1920's Copenhagen where we see an up and coming artist named Gerda (masterfully played by Alicia Vikander) celebrating the success of her latest set of paintings - portraits depicted a beautifully mysterious young woman named Lili. But while her guests and members of the public admire the innate beauty of her model, little do they know that the graceful Lili is in fact Einer, Gerda's husband (Redmayne). Living their quiet artistic lives in their spacious Dutch apartment, Einer and Gerda talk about their future together, toying with the notion of having children and preparing for careers in the professional art circuit.

However, despite being resistant to the idea of dressing as a woman at first, Einer quickly becomes obsessed with his female alter-ego. Secretly wearing his wife's frilly undergarments and applying make-up on a regular basis, Einer adopts the character of Lili as his own. But as Lili begins to invade on both his and wives marital life, it soon becomes abundantly clear to both Gerda and Einer that he was in fact born to be a woman - leading him down the path of  prejudice, reluctance, acceptance and eventually (for the time) highly dangerous gender reassignment.

Thanks to TV shows such as 'Transparent', 'Orange Is The New Black', 'Boy Meets Girl' and of course the media saturation of Caitlyn Jenner, transgenderism has gone from being one of the most taboo of social issues to one of the most talked about and widely discussed topics of our time. Now more than ever,  people are deciding to undergo sexual reassignment surgery without fear of prejudice and, while still extremely controversial in some countries, the choice to change our respective genders has become a much more socially acceptable thing to do.

So it would seem that releasing a movie about the worlds first recipient of a sex change, especially around awards season, would not only appear to jump on the already discussive zeitgeist but also, as previously discussed, serve as major Oscar bait. In fact 'The Danish Girl' has already fallen under some harsh criticism by some LGBT groups for that exact reason. Some say that it doesn't try to tell the story of Einer Wegener with any honest interntion but instead tries to cash in a topic that is already on everyone's lips.

However by saying that, you are really doing a disservice to one of the best biographical dramas of recent years. Not only does it tell the incredibly touching story about Wegeners choice to become a woman with great care and respect but it also features extraordinary cinematography, wonderfully delicate direction, a beautifully subtle score and two central performances which are sure to feature very heavily in the upcoming awards season.

As previously mentioned, Eddie Redmayne delivers a fantastic performance in this film. Much like his Oscar winning role in 'The Theory Of Everything', it is a performance of subtlety, technique and emotion and one that manages to anchor the movie in a deep-seated ambience of truth and dignity. Even when Lucinda Coxon's sometimes overly ripe screenplay threatens to derail the movie from it's reliable and honest track, Redmayne deftly remains in control - his every move captured with sincerity and cinematic grace by Hooper's idiosyncratic camera work.

But while Redmayne's immense talent holds everything together, it is Alicia Vikander who proves to be the films secret weapon. As strong and as emotionally powerful as her wigged co-star, she delivers a performance which defies the usual restrictions of a typical supporting role - at times stealing the show from right under Redmayne's high heels. Much like Felicity Jones in the aforementioned 'The Theory Of Everything', Vikander forms the humanistic veterbrae of the narrative, playing the onlooker and reactor to Redmayne's extraordinary transformation with skill and fierce determination. With 'Ex Machina', 'The Man From UNCLE' and 'Testament Of Youth', 2015 proved to be a very fruitful year for this fine actress. 'The Danish Girl' now seems to point to an equally eventful 2016.

As was the case with both 'The King's Speech' and 'Les Miserables', Tom Hooper manages to find incredible beauty in every corner of his expansive frame. Much like he did with his aforementioned Best Picture winning drama, he explores the themes of acceptance and self-realisation through obtrusive close ups and tastefully elaborate tracking shots - focusing on the pain, anguish and confusion masterfully etched on every inch of his stars face with an invasive, almost erotic intimacy. 

Captured with extraordinary grace by cinematographer Danny Cohen, every second of 'The Danish Girl' is simply stunning to behold - photographed with the same luscious palette colours and blistering vistas of Gerda and Einer's own masterworks. The production design by perfectly encapsulates the era while Alexandre Desplat's understated  yet robust underscoring helps to emphasise the movies emotional value and respectful tone. From a purely technical standpoint, 'The Danish Girl' is one of the strongest pictures of this awards season and it would not be surprising if it picked up many prizes for cinematography, sound and design.

Sadly, while the performances and production values are all terrific, the film does have one very noticeable flaw. The touching story of Lili Elbe's journey has long been known thanks to her own groundbreaking 1933 autobiography 'Man To Woman' as well as David Ebershoff's 2000 fictionalised novel 'The Danish Girl' which served as the primary influence for the movie. Therefore, the details of Lili's tragic death are well documentated. However, in order to keep the cinema going audiences happy, screenwriter Coxon has wrongfully decided to alter the circumstances of her passing - meaning that the film ends on a still sad, yet noticeably false note and while still beautifully shot and wonderfully acted, this final act noticeably lacks the honesty and brutal truthfulness of it's preceding two hours. However, this the only major complaint about an otherwise sumptuous and heart-wrenching masterpiece. Eddie Redmayne may be one of few actors to win back to back Academy Awards come February and he most certainly deserves to but recognition must also go to the astonishing Alicia Vikander - an actress who is proving to be one of the most reliable working in cinema today.