Directed by: Tom Hooper
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, Ben Whishaw, Sebastian Koch, Amber Heard. Matthias Schoenaerts
Despite The Danish Girl's noble intentions and top notch production values, I was left ambivalent about how much I really cared. The story has relevance to today's LGBT struggles for acceptance and tolerance. Einar Wegener (Redmayne), who undergoes gender reassignment surgery, could be considered a pioneer and a poster child for the cause. The Danish Girl, however, feels muted. It lacks power and never transcends into true greatness. We hope everyone is as happy as they can be under the circumstances, but my emotional investment wasn't much greater than that.
The Danish Girl opens in 1920s Copenhagen, based on true events. This means that the main characters existed, but a lot of dramatic license was taken. Einar is a painter gaining fame while his wife Gertda (Vikander) struggles with living in his shadow. She is an able still-life painter, but is unable to sell her work. They seem pretty happy together, but soon Einar's inner conflict takes hold. At first, we see him lovingly stroking women's coats as he walks by them. Gerda soon discovers Einar wearing her slip underneath his clothes. This is a kinky turn-on to Gerda at first. For fun, she then helps Einar pick out women's clothes and put on makeup to accompany her to a party as Einar's cousin Lili.
Matters become complicated quickly, as Lili gains the attention of a man named Henrik (Whishaw), who likely knows Lili isn't who she says she is and doesn't much care. They kiss and Gerda sees them, which further clouds the issue. We begin to understand that Einar feels he is a woman trapped in a man's body. He doesn't just want to dress up as a woman, he wants to be one. To him, Lili is the real person, while Einar is the disguise.
Doctors are not sympathetic to Einar's plight. He is treated for schizophrenia with electroshock therapy, which of course won't help. He soon finds a doctor in Paris (Koch), who can perform the relatively new gender reassignment surgery. These surgeries could be life threatening, with a high risk of infection and body rejection, but Einar would rather live (and perhaps die) as his true self than as his false one. To me and probably everyone else Einar knew, this sounds like too big of a risk to take, but only Einar knows what he knows and feels.
Gerda is nearly saintly in her support of Einar/Lili. It is here where their relationship becomes murky. As Einar transforms into Lili, he treats Gerda coldly. "Einar is dead. I need to have a life of my own and you should do the same," he tells Gerda. In the next breath, however, he wants her to accompany him as he undergoes phase two of the surgery. Vikander won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role. It is a difficult performance to pull off as she is torn between her loyalty to her spouse and her understanding that she will lose him. She manages to be sympathetic and the person many can most identify with in this confusing situation. Her patience and support make her a viable candidate for sainthood.
Redmayne, like his Oscar-winning role in The Theory of Everything (2014), undergoes a painstakingly physical transformation from Einar into Lili. Like his Dr. Stephen Hawking, he plays a real person caught in a struggle that very few can actually relate to. Redmayne allows us to see inside as much as we possibly can. He has been terrific in other movies like My Week with Marilyn and Les Miserables where he wasn't asked to do so much heavy lifting. Maybe his next role should be a straight up romantic comedy. I'd feel bad for him if he took on The Elephant Man.
What do we make of The Danish Girl? I admired it without truly feeling it. Einar and Gerda are sweet, decent people caught in a situation neither expected. There wasn't a self-help book designed to navigate it at the time. Are we expected to feel more for the story because of its contemporary relevance? A great film will make us think and feel no matter what. The Danish Girl wants to be great in every fiber of its being, but we're left with a competently made film that I wanted to like more than I actually did.
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