Review: The Danish Girl (2015)

Well that was a bust.

Tom Hooper's maudlin, overly melodramatic and laughably historically inaccurate retelling of the life of the second transgender woman is an over-cooked, syrupy and worst of all, boring examination of a no doubt interesting story.

Hooper's direction is a strangely over artistic affair that relies more on some strange understated aesthetic then actual skill. He has a nasty habit of jamming people into the extreme corners of the frame, and the overall tone of the film is so prim and proper that it becomes stifling of any potential drama or intensity that such a topic could no doubt bring to the screen. It leads the film to becoming a dry, uninspired affair, that honestly lacks anything to set it apart from the endless glut of blatant Oscar bait that comes to theaters every year like clock work.

The screenplay, written Lucinda Coxon and based on the hilariously fictionalized novel of the same name, takes little effort to resemble the actual historical events of Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe's life, and that of his wife, Gerda Wegener. Instead, it paints an overly romanticized and maudlin picture of events, and also seems to almost hint that Einar's transition into Lili is some sort of forced feminization or something. Often, he refers to Lili as an entirely separate personality from Einar, going as far to say "I want to kill Einar". Instead of painting this as a simple case of forging a new identity, it comes across almost as some sort of split personality, with Lili steadily taking over Einar, and overriding the original personality with a new one, which raises a whole bevy of unfortunate implications I'd rather not address right now.

On top of that, Lili/Einar is insufferably selfish within the context of the story, repeatedly trying to force his/her new life style onto his/her wife Gerda, even when Gerda begins to show misgivings, which is another fact that didn't happen in real life. Apparently, Gerda was totally fine with Lili being transgender, and often painted erotic paintings of her, which has lead some speculate that Gerda herself may have been a lesbian, or at least bisexual.

Moving on from that, the acting overall is...okay, I guess. The best performance (and most symapthetic character) is Alicia Vikander as Gerda, and that's in spite of a screenplay that seems determined to have her spend most of the running time crying about something or other. But, Vikander still turns in a great performance, and her version of Gerda, a woman struggling to come to terms with their partner's offbeat journey of self discovery, is a sympathetic character, and honestly far more interesting then the selfish Lili/Einar.

Speaking of Lili/Einar, Eddie Redmayne really tries to rise above the horrible screenplay, but simply can't muster it. I'm not sure if it's the screenplay which paints Einar as already effete and obviously somewhere on the LGBT spectrum, to Lili, who comes across as selfish and self destructive, rapidly insisting on a dangerous sex change operation despite failing health, regardless of the fact that the surgery may kill her. Or maybe it's just Hooper's misguided direction, which decided to highlight those elements. Point is, Redmayne comes off as affected and artificial, like he's playing some sort of stereotype or cliché.

The rest of the cast is so bland I forgot about them.

Paco Delgado's costuming is very pretty though, as is Danny Cohen's cinematography...only to have both undermined by Hooper's frustrating direction, which, like I mentioned before, favors bizarre camera angels and lens choices (if I had a dollar for every fish eye lens...)

Alexandre Desplat's score is honestly far better then the film it's written for, being a gentle, elegant affair that is very much standard Desplat. I honestly prefer hearing it on it's own.

So in the end, The Danish Girl comes across not as an insightful character drama that it no doubt wishes to be, but as an overly melodramatic, overly simplistic and kitchey take on the story of Lili Elbe. I'm no expert on the nuances of the transgender community, but I'm pretty sure this isn't accurate. Last I checked, being transgender wasn't similar to having Multiple Personality Disorder.

1 star.