Review of The Danish Girl (2015) by Harry W — 27 Jan 2016

With Academy Award nominated performances in a film revolving around a transgender character, The Danish Girl sounded like a promising subject.

The Danish Girl seems to retread some of the mistakes made in Eddie Redmayne's prior film The Theory of Everything (2015). Both films feature distinctive historical figures, though The Danish Girl is of lesser known origins. Both films make a mistake of failing to delve beneath the surface of their characters and end up being a romantic drama about how a marriage is effected by the changing state of Eddie Redmayne's character. I will certainly admit that I liked The Danish Girl more than The Theory of Everything, but it still didn't make the impact that it had the potential to.

The film opens with the line "Don't you wish you could paint like your husband" which immediately sets the drama as relating to Gerda Wegener's under-appreciated artistic talents. This carries on for a while until the film gets to the point. Though it keeps true to its real-world relevance about how Einar Elbe found an identity in "Lili" through filling in for an absent model, the extent of truth in the story is misleading. The Danish Girl is promoted as a true story, yet in actuality it leaves out so much of Lili Elbe's life and specifically the events of her death due to being based on a fictional novel. Ultimately, this is because The Danish Girl plays it so safe that the drama is a bit more subtle. The result is too subtle for the good of the film. There is some benefit in the film playing it safe because it means viewers less familiar or favourite with the concept of transgender identity can experience the theme in a fashion which doesn't take an approach that is bleak enough to intimidate them. It lightly bridges less knowledgeable viewers into a subject which needs to be realized significantly more in society, and the gentle manner in which it treats its characters does so without hitting hen over the head with a political agenda. But as far as actual entertainment value goes, The Danish Girl is so subtle with its dramatic themes that the experience proves to be a lot of waiting around for something to actually happen.

Being a slowly moving film, The Danish Girl maintains this edge through a reliance on quiet characters and dramatic implications rather than actually telling the viewers the truth. Tom Hooper doesn't necessarily condescend viewers with his film, but he doesn't appear to trust their judgement in the real story and really seems to hold back. With the Transgender Movement becoming more and more active in the contemporary age, The Danish Girl presents a perfect opportunity to present viewers an intellectually stimulating look at what it is to be transgender. Tom Hooper does not capitalize on the chance though. His eye for style remains the same, but all in all it is a large step down for him after creating a magnificent biopic by the name of The King's Speech (2010).

Attempting to fit the complicated transition Lili Elbe goes through to truly discover herself into the confines of a biopic film, The Danish Girl focuses on reconstructing the events with a screenplay which comes off as simplistic and predictable. This doesn't sustain the depth in the film, it just leaves a lot to the implications and is perhaps likely to render audiences as confused as the people around Lili Elbe. When the dramatic edge of the film does increase, it's only for brief moments of sporadic melodrama which make an awkward composition within the narrative and come at the viewer too fast when they have settled for a more slow and subtle mood that constitutes the rest of the film. Some viewers may consider that the slower parts of the film are present to build atmosphere as the film progresses towards more hard-hitting moments, but I am not one of them.

The Danish Girl is not necessarily a bad film, but I wouldn't call it an entertaining one. Most of it all it seems like another exercise in style for Tom Hooper. His eye for imagery continues from his prior works and ensures that The Danish Girl is packed with beautiful scenery, production design and costumes which are all captured with nice cinematography. The composition of the cameras proves to emphasize the beauty of the foreground while turning the background into an atmospheric backdrop through the colour scheme it creates. The visual grace of The Danish Girl is clear, and the spirit of its musical score provides a nice feel to it.

And admittedly, The Danish Girl gains much strength from the talents of the cast.

Eddie Redmayne's leading performance is a very credible effort. In keeping up with the restrained nature of the drama, Eddie Redmayne must once again exercise more talent in his physical acting than his voice articulation. Yet he gets both done very well. Eddie Redmayne effectively conveys the confusion and vulnerability he faces in the character's transition through the way he walks and directs his eyes. As the story goes on, every little movement the character mimics stereotypical feminine traits which displays an effective depiction of the transition between Einar and Lili. And even though the film requires a lot of subtlety, Eddie Redmayne's manner of speaking captures this without restraining any of the passion felt by Lili. The film may lack the complex psychology to depict Lili Wegener in an accurate manner, but Eddie Redmayne remains deeply invested in every inch of the character for the entire film and really works to make a sympathetic character out of Lili, one whom is easily accessible in terms of sympathy and therefore offers an olive branch to viewers who are not too familiar with the concept of transgender identity to gain a beginners understanding of how naturally some people find themselves being transgender.

Yet it is Alicia Vikander who steals the show. There is a lot of emotions Gerda Wegener goes through in coping with her husband's transition, and the subtle nature of the film limits how much Alicia Vikander is able to say about it. Beautifully enough, she doesn't have to say a word. Whenever she speaks she does it with grace and eloquence which works to create an effective chemistry with Eddie Redmayne, but it is her facial expressions that say it all. She doesn't face as much of a challenge as Eddie Redmayne, but in a limited matter of screen time she manages to capture audiences' sympathies for having to give up her husband so that Lili can have her desired happiness. Alicia Vikander captures the reluctance to face the truth of what she must do and also the supportive spirit of Lili's transition in a powerful balance. She really makes a beautiful effort and is able to capture everything about her character without saying a word, even capable of crying on command at the more dramatic scenes in the film. Alicia Vikander's performance alone is enough to render The Danish Girl a worthy viewing experience, even though it is Eddie Redmayne who is the majority of the focus.

The Danish Girl maintains Tom Hooper's sense of visionary style as a director while bringing some impressive performances out of Eddie Redmayne and especially Alicia Vikander, but its inability to capitalize on the full potential of its subject matter leaves it a slow and overly subtle experience which fails to do justice to the real-life story it pretentiously fictionalizes.