The Danish Girl

This may be a thoroughly British take on this very real groundbreaking story, but immediately from the first frame the screen is awash with these muted languid tones of Copenhagen in the first half of the last century, that there is no doubt of where this is all taking place. Einar and Gerda Wegener are a young married couple and both Danish artists who enjoy quite a comfortable life as a respected part of the city’s art community. Einar is relishing considerable success with his landscape paintings but Gerda is still trying to find her stride as a portrait artist.  After the latest rejection of her work by the Curator at the Museum she asks Einar to help her when the subject that she has just recruited is unable to sit for her portrait one day.He finds that he actually enjoys being the substitute model and although he initially just dons the women’s stockings and shoes, he soon finds himself graduating into wearing her dress too.  Gerda is pleased because what she captures on her canvas is better than anything she has ever painted, and Einar is more than happy to oblige as it is awakening thoughts about his gender identity that have laid dormant for years.

When Gerda shows the work to a very enthusiastic Dealer and is asked to identify her new female model, the Wegener’s come up with the name Lili. Later when a brazen Einar decides to actually go out in public to an Art Exhibition dressed completely in female clothes, he explains away Lili as Einar’s cousin to anyone who remarks on the facial similarity. At the Reception Lili is ‘courted’ by a gay painter who has immediately recognized her as Einer, however when he starts his wooing, Einar stresses that he does not have any homosexual tendencies at all and is still very much in love with his wife

The fact that the Wegener’s enjoy a very full and regular sex life together is very much stressed throughout the developing story and even as Einar recedes and Lili takes over, they still consider themselves as a happily married couple. When Lili asks to wear one of Gerda’s nightdress one night, she explains “it doesn’t matter what I wear in bed, it’s what I dream about” which is enough to appease Gerda.

As we very quickly realize start Einar will transition completely into Lili, the real beauty of the fictionalized telling of this true story is in the minute detail and every single subtle nuance as Lili completely evolves and Einar totally disappears.  The fact that it works so very well indeed is due to the subliminal impassioned performance of Eddie Redmayne.  He is riveting to watch as he embraces Lili’s whole being with such determination and a delicacy that rings so completely true.

Questions have been raised about the political correctness of having a cisgender man play this role, but that aside, it is hard to imagine any other actor of Redmayne’s generation nailing the part so utterly convincingly and so compellingly.  It is nothing less than a tour-de-force and I would even go to say that it surpasses his Oscar winning turn as Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything” last year.

Redmayne has the support of the only Scandinavian in the entire movie the beautiful and very talented Alicia Vikander as Gerda the loyal wife who loves Einar so much that she is prepared to let him go so that he can claim his real identity.  Her fierce loyalty right to the very end adds an heart-touching emotional strand to the tale that ensures that you need to reach for the Kleenex more than once.

The movie reunites Redmayne with “Les Miserables” director Tom Hooper (who picked up an Oscar for “The Kings Speech”) but even with Redmayne’s magnificent performance plus a great visual look and a lush soundtrack by Alexandre Desplat, it somehow still lacks the excitement that one would expect from such a potentially powerful story.

However judged as a showcase for Redmayne’s talent alone is reason enough to add “The Danish Girl” to the list of unmissable Oscar-potential movies this season.

P.S.  By far the best line of Lucinda Coxon’s script is spoken by Einer’s oldest friend Max played by Matthias Schoenaerts in response to Lili apologising for being a nuisance.  He tells her not to worry : “I have liked very people in my life, and you have been two of them.”