Sunday, January 3, 2016

Review - The Danish Girl

Exquisite but not extra-ordinary.

Isn't it pretty!
In the time of hard hitting and realistic portrayal of transgender people in Amazon's Transparent and recent transgender movement, The Danish Girl is a welcome addition. Tom Hooper's film is pretty important one - telling the story, though largely fictionalized, of first person who underwent sex reassignment surgery, and perhaps the story of first transgender woman, Lily Elbe.

The film follows the life of landscape painter Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne) and her portrait painter wife, Gerda (Alicia Vikander). Set in 1920s, both of them are equally supportive of each other, equally in love. Things take turn when Einar stands for one of the Gerda's portraits, in place of a female model. Wearing stockings and striking a feminine pose, a flurry of repressed feelings engulf Einar. This follows a brief cross dressing fun game suggested by Gerda herself, in which Einar goes out as 'Lily' in a party. One moment follows another, Einar loses himself and Lily emerges - causing a great turmoil in their life. Ultimately, with never-ending support of Gerda, Einar goes for sex reassignment surgery and becomes the first transgendered woman, albeit it all ends tragically.

Eddie Redmayne's physical transformation as Lily is astonishing to watch. His smile and his androgynous features work as a trump card. However, his performance is more or less reduced to technicalities - his gestures and gaze as Lily seem well rehearsed and well observed, but never organic. His performance lacks soul and layers of trapped repression, ultimately reflecting a bird's eye view of the character. Still, given the level of difficulty, Redmayne has done a great job, an Oscar nomination is surely there for him. 

But The Danish Girl isn't all about Lily/Einar - Hooper's film is as much about Gerda as it is about Lily. And, as Alicia Vikander embodies Gerda scene by scene, you cannot help but to be amused by the fact that she stole the show from Redmayne - without any acting technicalities or transformations. With a performance erupting with emotions, Vikander's Gerda feels more rich and deeply realized than Redmanye's Lily. Even Hooper devotes much focus on Gerda, sometimes it felt that the titular Danish girl is Gerda, instead of Lily.

As an overall film, The Danish Girl is all about surfaces - the film never goes deep into the characters' lives. Hooper weaves his film around Lily and Gerda, ticking all the major plot outlines, never dwelling on them with a closeness. Also, the film feels shy of depicting much explicit human anatomy, which seems pretty obvious for a film about transgender surgery. With a polished production design, beautiful cinematography by Danny Cohen and equally elegant Alexandre Desplat's score, The Danish Girl depicts everything about Lily Elbe's life - but through a thick window pane, which distances the viewer from its characters.

3.5/5

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