The Danish Girl (2015)

Directed by: Tom Hooper

Written by: Lucinda Coxon & David Ebershoff (novel)

Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, & Matthias Schoenaerts







The Danish Girl revolves around a lovely couple that are profound artists in Denmark.  Einar Wegener (Redmayne) mostly does landscapes, but is well known, while his wife Gerda (Vikander) does portraits and is up and coming.  Both fit together like a glove, knowing the other almost too well, until, as a joke, Gerda dresses up Einar as a woman named Lili as they attend the artists' ball.  While at the ball, Einar/Lili begins to prefer being a woman, admiring the attention from men and a woman's style.  But considering that this story takes place in 1926, it is not necessarily the norm to come out as transgender.  Can Einar/Lili handle this transition taking place within him/her?  Can Gerda?

I enjoyed this film very much.  Despite knowing that Einar/Lili was the one going through the transition, I sympathized more with Gerda.  Vikander was the one that made the film more than anything.

The film reminds me of Redmayne's previous film The Theory of Everything, where he played Stephen Hawking.  Of course, not the same in character or story, but the couple's relationship is similar.  But so is Redmayne's acting.  He did a superb job as Hawking and again as Wegener.  For all I know, he might win again for Best Actor.

Even though the story is great, some of the cinematography was too lavish.  The camera shots were wide in the beginning and showed off too much of the scenery in my opinion.  It was as if they wanted to try these excessive shots just for their reels and not to push the story along.  It was starting to get annoying by the middle.

I'd also like to point out Schoenaerts, who played Hans Axgil.  Technically he is important to the film and I just love his acting.  I recently saw him in Far From the Madding Crowd and thought he was great.  It could also be because he looks a little bit like Ryan Gosling, without the cockiness.  Anyway, keep an eye out for him because he seems to be appearing more and more these days.

But back to the film.  The whole storyline was great, but because of the cinematography and that the film didn't make me cry, 4 popcorns.