The Danish Girl - Dir. Tom Hooper
Like all good stories, this is one that informs as well entertains. Set in 1920s Copenhagen, The Danish girl tells the story of Danish artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener, their marriage and Lili's groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.
In many ways, Eddie Redmayne is the perfect actor to have taken on such a role, an individual so versatile and daring with his feature selections now that in truth he is in the upper echelons of acting prowess, present with selective company; Daniel Day Lewis, Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando. But the striking thing about Redmayne is his age, he’s only 36 and so it’s incredible and delightful to think that he has so many years, decades ahead of him in which to showcase his talent.
He impresses no end in this film, but not without support from Alicia Vikander and Ben Wishaw. It’s such a pleasure to watch these three work their magic, again all young and fearsomely talented. The acting is spellbinding and of course a great actor needs a great Director. Tom Hooper, the go to British Director, is now on his 5th feature, which is quite surprising considering how well his films have done, but is also in part to his long TV career before his debut feature Red Dust (2004).
The Danish Girl feels like a Hopper film, interestingly this was the first shot shot digitally. My only gripe with the look, and I’m sure a fair few people will disagree, is the set design. Whilst beautifully made, I found a lot of it to be too large, almost adapted to theatre size, which made a lot of the spaces seem distractingly large. Having said that it is beautifully lit and British cinematographer Danny Cohen (Les Miserables, The King’s Speech, Room), does a wonderful job of placing us in 1920s Denmark.
The film is about a relationship breaking but another forming, almost sweeter than the last. Although the film is fictitious and only loosely based on reality I was swept away by the storytelling, something that Hooper is excellent at. I think he excels at picking the right stories, I’m not completely convinced with his writing. Whilst it is good at times, often it feels too forced and would probably be more comfortable recited in a theatre than a cinema. Hooper went to Westminster School, one of the most prestigious in the country and I often feel that his films are too high-brow in their existence, he doesn’t reflect real life in the way most people live it in his writing and I think the fact that this story is fictitious is a good example of that. I also wonder why there were no transgender actors in this film. Trans actress Rebecca Root plays one of Lili's nurses, and Jake Graf, a transgender man, also plays a small part appearing next to Matthias Schoenaerts at the art gallery during the exhibition of Gerda's portraits. They are both merely extras. It seems an odd decision given the impact Lili Elbe had on the transgender movement, as one of the first people to undergo sex reassignment surgery.
This film is important, it sheds light on an individual of pioneering importance in the transgender movement that many people won’t have heard of but ultimately it feels like a polished version of the truth. For example, Lili's final operation to have a womb transplanted into her in the hopes of having children, would ultimately kill her due to organ rejection resulting in a cardiac arrest. This is a crucial detail that is absent from the film.
In terms of performance it’s a beautiful film and well worth watching but I can’t help but feel that it could have been made more accurately and less polished by means of the version that was presented.
6.5/10