The Danish Girl
Go! A tragic but romantic fairytale.
Danish beginnings of gender reassignment.
Hands up if you've ever seen a film about transgenderism? Chances are you won’t have, unless you've come across Boys Don’t Cry (1999) or Transamerica (2005) (both of which resulted in major awards for their lead performers). It is a complex subject that goes to the very root of our perceptions about identity. It is also a relatively new social concept, having only initially been acknowledged by medical science in the early-to-mid part of the 20th Century. In 2015, it exploded into the public consciousness (in a manner only made feasible by the ostentatious Kult of the Kardashians) with Bruce Jenner’s much-tweeted male to female transition. The Danish Girl therefore – rather unknowingly – arrives at a particularly conspicuous moment.
Based on the best-selling book of the same name, it tells the true story of the Dane who is believed to be the first recipient of gender reassignment surgery. In the late 1920’s, Einar Wegener transitioned to female, becoming Lili Elbe (both Eddie Redmayne, Les Misérables). Alongside the corresponding experiences of her wife, Gerda (Alicia Vikander, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), we are taken through Lili’s initial social expression of her true gender as she dresses as a woman publicly for the first time, to her profound and traumatic emotional exploration. It eventually leads to her seeking physical surgery from German physician Dr. Warnekros (Sebastian Koch, Bridge of Spies) in the face of a medical community who at the time considered her to be everything from an “aberrant thinker” to plainly insane.
Based on the best-selling book of the same name, it tells the true story of the Dane who is believed to be the first recipient of gender reassignment surgery. In the late 1920’s, Einar Wegener transitioned to female, becoming Lili Elbe (both Eddie Redmayne, Les Misérables). Alongside the corresponding experiences of her wife, Gerda (Alicia Vikander, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), we are taken through Lili’s initial social expression of her true gender as she dresses as a woman publicly for the first time, to her profound and traumatic emotional exploration. It eventually leads to her seeking physical surgery from German physician Dr. Warnekros (Sebastian Koch, Bridge of Spies) in the face of a medical community who at the time considered her to be everything from an “aberrant thinker” to plainly insane.
In terms of film-making craft, The Danish Girl is tenderly delivered by director, Tom Hooper (Les Misérables, The King’s Speech). Both of the lead characters are painters, and the soft, matte colours of a beautifully recreated Copenhagen mimic their work; brushed onto the screen in pallid watercolours. It also reflects the subtle intimacy of the film, which will draw you in gently before catapulting you into the eye of Lili’s emotional storm; to the point of discomfort at seeing her endure a process that feels deeply private. The difficulty of watching her struggle could have lost the audience entirely, but is graciously offset by the moving and powerful performances of Vikander and Redmayne. They begin, united and playful in an apparently conventional married relationship, but as the distance between Lili and Gerda grows and their respective conflicts reveal themselves, they are aggressively challenged to hold the line of their characters’ contrasting courses and convey the many consequences of Lili’s evolution. Both give remarkably committed performances.
Redmayne has again demonstrated his ability to take complete ownership of a hugely involved role. His sway, back and forth, between Einar and Lili is equally as extraordinary as his Oscar-winning turn as Steven Hawking in The Theory of Everything. While Redmayne’s transition in gender as well as emotional state makes his performance the more “obviously” impressive of the two, Vikander’s is consistent, controlled, powerful and arguably even more striking. She is the lightning rod through which Redmayne’s quivering intensity is conducted; modulating and containing, to guide an predominantly under-educated audience to better understand and embrace gender transition as she goes through the same process.
Redmayne has again demonstrated his ability to take complete ownership of a hugely involved role. His sway, back and forth, between Einar and Lili is equally as extraordinary as his Oscar-winning turn as Steven Hawking in The Theory of Everything. While Redmayne’s transition in gender as well as emotional state makes his performance the more “obviously” impressive of the two, Vikander’s is consistent, controlled, powerful and arguably even more striking. She is the lightning rod through which Redmayne’s quivering intensity is conducted; modulating and containing, to guide an predominantly under-educated audience to better understand and embrace gender transition as she goes through the same process.
The biggest criticism of the film is that Redmayne’s interpretation of being a woman can seem over-theatrical and forced. There are people with genuine experience of a gender transition who could comment on how true to life it may or may not be, but in the context of the film, Lili’s femininity can come across as too much of a dramatic affectation. Be it the first, palpitating realisation of her womanhood (by touching the stitching of a silk dress) to her copying the gestures and glances of women in the street, there is an almost comedic undertone that could have been avoided. Nonetheless, there is so much else offered by Redmayne, that any such distraction does not consume the emotional acuity that The Danish Girl consistently strives for and so regularly achieves.
So go. As much as it is a story about gender reassignment, it is also a love story; an identity fable; and if you allow yourself to sink deep enough into it, a raw and romantic, true-life fairy-tale.
So go. As much as it is a story about gender reassignment, it is also a love story; an identity fable; and if you allow yourself to sink deep enough into it, a raw and romantic, true-life fairy-tale.
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