movie review the danish girl

The Danish Girl

Can a movie be impeccably made—well-cast and strongly acted, flawlessly appointed and gorgeously shot—yet still leave you cold? Can it do everything right technically without touching you emotionally? Can it offer a transporting experience without changing you one bit? Such is the conundrum with “The Danish Girl.”

Given that he’s telling the story of real-life artist Einar Wegener ( Eddie Redmayne )—the first-known person to undergo sexual reassignment surgery nearly a century ago when he transformed himself into Lili Elbe—director Tom Hooper plays it dismayingly safe. As was the case with his Oscar-winning “The King’s Speech” and “Les Miserables,” Hooper’s latest is tasteful and restrained to a fault. It is easier to admire than love. And maybe that’s intentional to some extent. Maybe—in adapting Lucinda Coxon ’s script, based on David Ebershoff ’s novel about the 1920s Danish landscape painter—Hooper aims to reach the widest possible audience by presenting such potentially challenging material in the form of a lush prestige picture.

Maybe the thinking is that the vast majority of people would be more likely to see a movie about a transgender character if it were offered as awards bait, to use a phrase that’s pejorative but apt, rather than a scrappy little indie like “ Tangerine .” Between both of these movies—and the award-winning television series ‘Transparent,” and the well-documented saga of Caitlyn Jenner—the struggles transgender people have endured have been part of the consciousness and dialogue this past year like never before. “The Danish Girl” may seem zeitgeisty through sheer timing—and that may seem cynical on the surface—but it’s clear that its heart is in the right place.

But speaking of the heart, “The Danish Girl” is more likely to appeal to the head. Admittedly, there’s some striking imagery that will surely grab you: tutus hanging backstage at the ballet, illuminated from below like tulle jellyfish, or the crisp symmetry of immaculate, identical row houses, shot in widescreen. During a rare daring moment, Einar visits a peep show to mimic the stripper’s moves, and the two end up in a spontaneous sort of dance through the glass. But there are also plenty of images that are rather obvious and simplistic in their symbolism: a sheer sheet hanging between Einar and his wife Gerda (Alicia Viklander) at bedtime, providing a physical separation, or a scarf blowing away in the wind as Alexandre Desplat ’s score soars with it.

The excellent “Tangerine,” by contrast, may seem like a daunting prospect: Sean Baker ’s film, about a pair of trash-talking transgender prostitutes tearing through the streets of Hollywood on Christmas Eve, stars first-time actresses and was shot entirely on an iPhone. But it actually ends up being the more accessible of the two films; it’s got an immediacy and a vibrancy that “The Danish Girl” sorely lacks, as well as a genuine sense of emotional connection.

This is no fault of the film’s stars, Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander , who both give deeply committed performances—although one is stronger than the other. Redmayne has proven himself a technical master of transformation; his precise performance as Stephen Hawking in last year’s “ The Theory of Everything ” understandably earned him an Academy Award for best actor. Once again, he’s playing a real-life figure who undergoes a physical change that puts a strain on his marriage and forces both partners to reexamine their fractured bond, even as it’s clear that they still love each other.

Hooper, working with his usual cinematographer, Danny Cohen , luxuriates in Redmayne’s androgyny as Einar steadily morphs into Lili. (Those cheekbones! Those lips! Those long, elegant limbs!) And Paco Delgado ’s Jazz Age costume design is just decadent—not only for Redmayne but for the cast as a whole. But the film regards this complex figure in a way that’s mostly superficial. We never truly understand what drives Einar to become Lili completely, despite the physical danger and the social stigma; the character becomes a collection of mannerisms and proclamations. Certainly she was brave, but grasping the source and depth of that bravery would have made her feel like a fully fleshed-out person worthy of more than just polite appreciation.

The story that’s truly intriguing is the one that belongs to Vikander as Einar’s wife, Gerda—a fellow painter who struggled to be taken seriously in her husband’s shadow until she asks Einar to sit for a portrait of a ballerina and gets her first glimpse of his feminine side. Although Einar is the one who changes physically, Gerda is the one with the more compelling emotional arc. She’s in the tricky spot of having to be the rock but also evolve with an ever-changing situation, and doing so gives her more opportunities for shading.

At first, she’s accepting of Einar wearing lingerie under his suits and even a little turned on by it; playing dress-up at home eventually inspires them to enjoy lavish evenings among their friends in Copenhagen, just a couple of girls out on the town. But as it becomes increasingly clear that “Lili” isn’t just a persona but rather an expression of Einar’s true self, Gerda has to grapple with the fact that everything she’s known to be safe and true is crumbling beneath her.

At the same time, her career as a portrait artist is finally flourishing—with the blossoming Lili as her muse. And as friends new ( Ben Whishaw ) and old ( Matthias Schoenaerts ) enter the equation to lend support in various forms, they muddle matters further.

Vikander, who’s been on such a roll this year already in two extremely different films—the exquisite “ Ex Machina ” and the glossy romp “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”—makes every moment of her character’s journey believable with great nuance, from her strength and optimism to her confusion and loneliness. There’s a lovely delicacy to her but also a directness that’s equally appealing.

The title refers to Redmayne’s character and the transformation he underwent to make his outsides match his insides (to borrow a line from another recent beautiful but chilly domestic drama, Angelina Jolie Pitt’s “ By the Sea ”). But Vikander may actually be the film’s true star.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series “Ebert Presents At the Movies” opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Matthias Schoenaerts as Hans Axgil
Ben Whishaw as Henrik
Emerald Fennell as Elsa
Eddie Redmayne as Einar Wegener / Lili Elbe
Sebastian Koch as Warnekros
Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener
Adrian Schiller as Rasmussen
Amber Heard as Ulla
Alexandre Desplat

Director of Photography

Danny Cohen
David Ebershoff

Production Design

Eve Stewart
Lucinda Coxon
Melanie Oliver

Costume Design

Paco Delgado

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Review: ‘The Danish Girl,’ About a Transgender Pioneer

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By A.O. Scott

Nov. 26, 2015

“ The Danish Girl ,” Tom Hooper’s new film, is a story of individual struggle that is also a portrait of a marriage. In this respect and others it resembles “ The King’s Speech ,” Mr. Hooper’s earlier historical drama, a multiple Oscar winner a few years ago. In that case, the union of George VI and Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, was the foundation on which the tale of George’s elocutionary striving was built. Here, the marriage is bohemian rather than aristocratic, but the stakes, while personal, are every bit as profound and consequential as the matters of state that drove the monarch to the microphone.

When we first encounter Gerda and Einar Wegener, played by Alicia Vikander and Eddie Redmayne, they seem perfectly matched. Both are painters, living amid the soft colors and sea air of Copenhagen in 1926. Gerda is a portraitist, while Einar’s landscapes — drawn from his childhood memories of the fjords and marshlands of Vejle, a town on the Jutland peninsula — have brought him a measure of fame. Like many couples who share a profession, they provide each other with support as well as a bit of competition. Their best friend, Ulla (Amber Heard), a dancer, marvels at their mutual devotion, which combines the easy, egalitarian warmth of friendship with the heat of sexual attraction.

But their relationship turns out to rest on a false premise. Through a process that is by turns wrenching and exciting, Einar discovers that the man the world has always taken him to be is not the person he truly is. What begins as an experiment and a bit of a game — dressing as a woman for the Copenhagen artist’s ball, wearing one of Gerda’s camisoles under his clothes — becomes an existential transformation. For a while, Einar and Gerda pretend that Lili, his female persona, is Einar’s cousin, visiting Copenhagen from the countryside. Henrik (Ben Whishaw), a self-described “romantic,” falls in love with her. But Lili is not Einar in disguise: The truth is exactly the reverse.

Written for the screen by Lucinda Coxon and based on David Ebershoff’s novel of the same title, “The Danish Girl” is a fictionalized biography of Lili Elbe (as Einar Wegener came to be known), one of the first people to attempt sex reassignment surgery. Lili’s encounters with prevailing medical wisdom, culminating in her meeting with a sympathetic doctor (Sebastian Koch), form a harrowing subplot. And her bravery makes this film a welcome tribute to a heroic forerunner of the current movement for transgender rights. It’s impossible not to be moved by Lili’s self-recognition and by her demand to be recognized by those who care most about her.

Anatomy of a Scene | ‘The Danish Girl’

Tom hooper narrates a sequence from “the danish girl” featuring eddie redmayne and alicia vikander..

But it’s also hard not to wish that “The Danish Girl” were a better movie, a more daring and emotionally open exploration of Lili’s emergence. As it is, the film, like its heroine for most of her life, is trapped by conventional expectations and ways of being. If, that is, Lili is really the heroine at all. The film’s title phrase is uttered on screen once, by Einar’s childhood friend Hans (Matthias Schoenaerts), a Paris art dealer, in reference to Gerda. And it is Gerda’s ordeal that provides the narrative with its emotional center of gravity.

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The Danish Girl Reviews

The film exudes a winning empathy for the quandary of identity at the center of the narrative.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 7, 2024

Hooper has over-thought his film and unintentionally distanced his audience from relating to the material.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 23, 2022

The Danish Girl sees Hooper return to the territory of which he is a master; sweeping period drama with fascinating subjects.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 2, 2021

A tender treatment of a delicate subject but with a shallow focus.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 15, 2021

Thus, despite some moving moments, The Danish Girl largely rests on the surface of things.

Full Review | Feb 26, 2021

The Danish Girl is, in the end, a beautiful, frustratingly opaque love story that provides only a surface view of Elbe's journey.

Full Review | Feb 9, 2021

For me, the love story was not engaging enough to make the movie interesting.

Full Review | Apr 30, 2020

It was so shallow.

The Danish Girl is a Thomas Kinkade painting set into motion - supremely crafted, but absent of substance.

Full Review | Apr 7, 2020

If seeing a pair of world-class actors surrounded by impeccable art design create fully rounded characters sounds like a good time to you, then The Danish Girl is not to be missed.

Full Review | Jan 13, 2020

Historically, Hirschfeld's Institute was looted by the Nazis in 1933 and all the records were burned. In-other-words The Danish Girl is a fiction based film taken from the skeletal remains of whatever scraps of paper were left behind after the Great War.

Full Review | Sep 15, 2019

A work of tremulous beauty buoyed by two of the most powerful screen performances in recent memory.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 5, 2019

Hooper's direction is refreshingly frank about how confusing and overwhelming Lili's transition was for her and her wife. Elsewhere, Coxon's immaculate script is perceptive, if a little on-the-nose...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 17, 2019

The film is masterfully composed and boasts two strong central performances that will undoubtedly merit their certain Academy recognition.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 8, 2019

Not always engaging, The Danish Girl is still able to provide some heartfelt moments even while the overall story arc could have been expanded upon.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 5, 2019

The whole film feels very dated but also, in spite of it being "based on a true story", false.

Full Review | Mar 7, 2019

The most gorgeous pictures in the world can't cover up phoniness, and that's exactly what Hooper and Redmayne's Lili feels like: phony. A pretty portrait of the wrong woman.

Full Review | Original Score: 5.5/10 | Feb 22, 2019

The Danish Girl is certainly well-directed and certainly boasts great performances, but the story sells audiences short. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Feb 13, 2019

While Redmayne bravely steps into a unique role, it is Gerda's perpective and Vikander's acting that stand out.

Full Review | Jan 24, 2019

While the film has flaws that hinder it from being fully gripping (the last act in particular), Hooper has made a dazzling picture that is just another notch on his shiny awards season belt.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Dec 14, 2018

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Venice Film Review: ‘The Danish Girl’

Eddie Redmayne makes the ultimate transition, reteaming with 'Les Miserables' director Tom Hooper in this sensitive, high-profile portrait of transgender pioneer Lili Erbe.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

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A year after Eddie Redmayne proved his incredible capacity for reinvention in “The Theory of Everything,” the freckle-faced Brit pulls off the ultimate identity overhaul as “ The Danish Girl ,” portraying gender-reassignment trailblazer Lili Elbe, nee Einar Wegener, who was one of the first to make a “sex change” via surgery. For an actor, there can be few more enticing — or challenging — roles than this, in which the nature of identity, performance and transformation are all wrapped up in the very fabric of the character itself, and Redmayne gives the greatest performance of his career so far, infinitely more intimate — and far less technical — than the already stunning turn as Stephen Hawking that so recently won him the Oscar. Reuniting with “Les Miserables” director Tom Hooper in a return to the handsome, mostly interior style of the helmer’s Oscar-winning “The King’s Speech,” Redmayne finds himself at the heart — one shared by Alicia Vikander , as Einar’s wife, Gerda — of what’s destined to be the year’s most talked-about arthouse phenomenon.

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Though set nearly a century ago, between the years 1926 and 1931, it has taken this long for the subject to receive such a high-profile treatment, and though some might say argue it comes as too little too late, the pic’s release could hardly be timelier in the wake of so many recent headlines — especially the legalization of gay marriage and Caitlyn Jenner’s high-profile gender transition. As it happens, “The Danish Girl” has been in the works since the publication of David Ebershoff’s novel 15 years ago, with Nicole Kidman originally attached to play Lili for director Lasse Hallstrom.

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Clearly, this was never not going to be a “prestige” picture. And while that ultra-respectful approach will engender allergic reactions in some, who’d sooner see a gritty, realistic portrayal — a la Jill Soloway’s terrific “Transparent” series for Amazon — than one seemingly tailored for the pages of fashion and interior-design magazines, there’s no denying that Hooper and screenwriter Lucinda Coxon have delivered a cinematic landmark, one whose classical style all but disguises how controversial its subject matter still remains. For rowdier crowds, there will always be “Myra Breckinridge.” In order to penetrate the conversation of “polite” society, however, one must play by its rules, and “The Danish Girl” is nothing if not sensitive to how old-fashioned viewers (and voters) might respond, scrubbing the story of its pricklier details and upholding the long-standing LGBT-movie tradition of tragically killing off the “monster” in the end.

Pause for a moment to consider how significant a choice it was to cast a man, Redmayne, in the lead role — which is not to say that gifted actresses haven’t delivered incredible work in pre- and post-op male-to-female parts, from Felicity Huffman’s “Transamerica” road-tripper to Olympia Dukakis’ “Tales of the City” landlady. But it’s almost unfair to cast according to the character’s target gender, as it inoculates whatever resistance the public feels toward these procedures (although one day, Hollywood will cross the hurdle of inviting trans actors to play such roles, as well as those on either side of gender divide).

When “The Danish Girl” first introduces Redmayne’s character, he is dapperly costumed as a Danish gentleman, making eyes across a gallery opening at his wife, Gerda (Vikander). And what eyes! Throughout the actor’s career, casting directors have always wrestled with Redmayne’s exceptionally specific look, which is not so much androgynous as a paradoxical blend of pretty and off-putting features: those unblinking, long-lashed eyes; the sharp, knobby cleft of his nose; elegant malar bones set above pale, sucked-in cheeks; and lips to make Angelina Jolie jealous. Our brains never quite know how to process Redmayne’s appearance, and here, Hooper takes full advantage of that situation.

The first time Einar dons ladies’ clothes, the idea is Gerda’s: Already married, the couple both make their living as artists, and though Einar’s work is taken seriously, a gallerist tells Gerda that she could be great, if only she found the right subject matter. It’s just an offhand suggestion, a favor really, but while waiting for her model to arrive, Gerda asks her husband to slip on a pair of ivory stockings and matching silk pumps, inadvertently releasing her muse.

When dancer friend Ulla (Amber Heard) does appear, she responds to the situation with delight, christening Einar’s alter ego “Lili.” It’s a confusing moment for Einar, who has long repressed what made him different from the other boys in Vejle, Denmark, and who will later tell his wife, “You helped bring Lili to life, but she was always there.” Outsiders always want to know what makes LGBT people “that way,” seeking psychological answers to a situation with which they can’t identify, but “The Danish Girl” dutifully avoids any such armchair diagnosis. It is surely for the benefit of such skeptics that Lili explains, “God made me this way, but the doctor is curing me of the sickness that was my disguise.”

Until scandalously recent times, the medical community’s response to such identity issues was to diagnose their “aberrant” or “perverse” patients as schizophrenic or insane and to shock, drug or irradiate the sickness out of them. That chronic misunderstanding becomes a running thread in the film, which tends to be far more pleasant to watch when Lili is getting to be herself. She is understandably hesitant to emerge at first, though Einar (who hates public gatherings) agrees to accompany his wife dressed as Lili, his imaginary ginger-haired cousin from Vejle. The resulting scene may be the film’s best, a coming out as thrilling as Cinderella’s ball, in which Lili can feel the gaze of everyone in the room on her.

This, he learns, is how beautiful women feel all the time in public, and if audiences take nothing else away from Hooper’s humanely empathetic film, this lone gender-swapping lesson in identification is victory enough. Naturally, Lili’s situation is more complicated, instantly escalating when a young suitor named Henrik (Ben Whishaw, masculinized for contrast’s sake) takes Lili aside and tries to kiss her — at precisely the moment Gerda comes to fetch her husband. Clinging to the notion that Einar and Gerda’s love was strong enough to weather all the challenges of his transition, Coxon’s screenplay is dramatized in such a way that the couple never discuss any of these setbacks immediately, but typically get around to it a scene or two later, back at home with their pet dog to distract and dressed in a fresh set of costume designer Paco Delgado’s lovely frocks.

In this case, Lili has vanished by the next morning, replaced by Einar, who appears to be genuinely wrestling between the two personae struggling for control of his body. At one point, reunited with boyhood friend Hans (Matthias Schoenaerts), he admits that he has considered suicide, but held back because he understood he would be killing Lili at the same time — a sentiment that all too many trans people share and one of the many reasons such a well-rounded portrayal is long overdue.

Of course, Einar’s struggle is very real, all the more difficult for its time, given the prevailing homophobia (dramatized in a Parisian gay-bashing) and sexual politics of the time. The late ’20s were still early days for women’s rights, and Redmayne represents someone trying to follow his female intuition at a time when that meant ceding the social privileges of manhood — an irony made clear in Gerda’s character, whose own bisexual identity has been conspicuously omitted, so as not to complicate the film’s politics.

Spotlighting the least-represented thread in the LGBT quilt, “The Danish Girl” clearly wants to untangle the trans experience from the blanket definition of homosexuality, using Lili’s rejection of Whishaw’s gay character and her interview with gender-confirmation surgeon Dr. Kurt Warnekros (Sebastian Koch, playing the sensitive pioneer) to distinguish the two. What’s of utmost importance here is the discovery and ultimate acceptance of Lili’s true identity, and from the film’s perspective, the gender question has nothing (or very little) to do with sex. Rather, it’s something that reveals itself at first in mirrors and other reflective surfaces, and later directly to camera, as Redmayne explores Einar’s hidden second persona.

As Hans puts it at a train sendoff that recalls “Casablanca,” “I’ve only really liked a handful of people in my life, and you’ve been two of them.” But Lili’s emergence is a gradual and hesitant process, beautifully embodied by Redmayne — and reflected by Vikander, whose Gerda does her best to adapt alongside her husband, amounting to a substantive role for the film’s resident “Swedish girl.” Shy at first, like a flower opening, Redmayne ducks his eyes and turns his head as Lili, his confidence growing in tandem with the rolling boil of Alexandre Desplat’s strings and piano score.

Though his first attempt at makeup looks rather grotesque, he becomes quite the pro (with an assist from actual pro Jan Sewell, who also designed the star’s prosthetics in “The Theory of Everything”), upstaging the other women whenever he goes out in public. At first, the goal is simply to pass — a game, almost — but in time, the butterfly motif becomes clear, reflected in the pic’s ripening color scheme. By the end, the goal is complete and total transformation as Einar studies the body language of the women around him and incorporates them into what for Redmayne is a character, but for Lili is her true self.

Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (competing), Sept. 5, 2015. (Also in Toronto Film Festival — Special Presentations.) Running time: 120 MIN.

Production: (U.K.-Germany-U.S.) A Focus Features (in U.S.)/Universal Pictures (in U.K.) release of a Universal presentation of a Working Title/Pretty Pictures production, in association with Senator Film Produktion. Produced by Tom Hooper, Gail Mutrux, Anne Harrison, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner. Executive producers, Linda Reisman, Ulf Israel, Kathy Morgan, Liza Chasin.
Crew: Directed by Tom Hooper. Screenplay, Lucinda Coxon, based on the book by David Ebershoff. Camera (color), Danny Cohen; editor, Melanie Oliver; music, Alexandre Desplat; production designer, Eve Stewart; supervising art director, Grant Armstrong; costume designer, Paco Delgado; sound, Martin Beresford; supervising sound editor, Matthew Skelding; re-recording mixers, Gilbert Lake, Mike Prestwood Smith; visual effects coordinator, Helen McAvoy; stunt coordinator, Julian Spencer; special effects supervisor, Paul Dimmer; assistant director, Ben Howarth; casting, Anders Nygaard, Anja Philip.
With: Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, Ben Whishaw, Sebastian Koch, Amber Heard, Matthias Schoenaerts. (English, French dialogue)

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The Danish Girl : Portrait of a Lady

Tom Hooper’s biopic about a transgender icon has the best of intentions, but doesn’t go deep enough into the heart of its subject.

The first 20 minutes of The Danish Girl are a breezy romance between two beautiful newlyweds—the artists Einar (Eddie Redmayne) and Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander). He paints landscapes, she does portraits, and they seem very happy with their lives in 1920s Copenhagen. But lurking in the background is a major plot development, one the director Tom Hooper resists setting up with even the slightest subtlety. Einar strokes a rack of ballet costumes with obvious longing; when he dons a pair of stockings to take the place of a female model sitting for Gerda, he has a profound emotional reaction. The Danish Girl is telling an important story, but it does so by following the blueprint of a thousand biopics that have come before.

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If there’s an optimistic take on the movie, it’s that at least the circle of Oscar-bait filmmaking has widened to take in the story of one of the first people to have gender-reassignment surgery. Einar, better known as Lili Elbe, was a pioneer in trans history and her life was the subject of a 2000 novel by David Ebershoff, adapted for the screen by Lucinda Coxon. But in the hands of Tom Hooper ( The King’s Speech , Les Misérables ), much of the nuance and complication surrounding her story is stripped away, resulting in a film that’s sensitive and often touching, but not remotely compelling.

Lili’s journey of self-actualization takes place almost entirely in the Wegeners’ sparse apartment and at the parties she attends with Gerda, first posing as a visiting cousin of Einar’s to pass off the resemblance without drawing much attention. Gerda initially indulges Lili’s routine, believing her husband is playing a character. But when Lili draws the attention of another man (Ben Whishaw) at the party, the illusion is shattered. At that point, Lili stops pretending to shift between identities and decides to begin living as a woman permanently.

The Danish Girl is at its most fascinating when it explores the medical reaction to Lili’s realization—she’s diagnosed as schizophrenic and homosexual, and recommended for commitment to an asylum for electroshock therapy. Before she meets the pioneering doctor Kurt Warnekros (Sebastian Koch), who recommends she proceed with reassignment surgery, the bigotry and confusion she encounters is heartbreaking to witness.

But the personal side is unfortunately pedestrian. Redmayne is a capable physical actor who communicates every shudder and thrill Einar feels in the first act, but that’s all there is to his portrayal of Lili. It’s as if he spent so much time nailing the physical mannerisms that he forgot to create a character to go with it. It’s also possible that the film’s understandable but uncomplicated reverence for its subject is to blame. Lili winces, blanches, and gently tells Gerda over and over again that this is who she is now. Redmayne cries throughout the film—rather, it seems someone is crying in every scene—and the repetitive outpouring of emotion quickly becomes dull.

Most of the narrative is told from Gerda’s perspective. It’s perhaps facile that the film presents Lili’s realization as something happening to her, and it’s the main reason why Lili feels held at arm’s length for the entire film. Still, Vikander does lovely work as Gerda—she also does her fair share of crying and shuddering, but Gerda is largely presented as an accepting spouse who helps guide Lili into the next phase of her life, while letting go of their marriage ( in real life, she was a more complicated person ). Her gentle soul, in a way, represents the mainstreaming of this story—through her, the audience is being reminded of the importance of recognizing Lili unselfishly. It’s not just a tale of Lili coming out but also one that speaks to the power of acceptance.

All of this is communicated with the kind of hamfistedness Hooper seems to rely on more and more. As in Les Misérables , his camera hovers inches from his subjects’ faces, trying to catch every emotional tremor in case viewers didn’t. Unlike The King’s Speech , a more involving biopic for which he won the Oscar for Best Director, The Danish Girl is lacking in humor or energy, and so it has to fall back on the sheer worthiness of the story it’s telling. Unfortunately for viewers at least, virtue alone isn’t enough.

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While no civil rights issue is truly over, some are more pressing than others, and the rights of transgender people is one we’ll all have to accept and should accept. And acceptance can only come through love, compassion, and understanding, and Tom Hooper ’s The Danish Girl attempts to provide all three. Based on the true story of Lili Elbe, one of the first people to get gender reassignment surgery, Hooper approaches the narrative with the utmost tenderness and care, as if the issue will explode if handled incorrectly (which isn’t an entirely unreasonable assumption). It makes Danish Girl feel exquisite yet fragile, but it holds together thanks to its powerhouse lead performances from Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander as long as Hooper remembers that this isn’t a story about “them” or “the other”, but about all of us. It’s schmaltzy to be sure (especially at the end), but the movie’s tender heart is in the right place.

Einar Wegener (Redmayne) and his wife Gerda (Vikander) work as artists in Copenhagen in 1926. Einar has found success painting landscapes, but Gerda is still struggling to be discovered with her portrait work. When they’re invited to a friend’s party, they decide as a joke to dress Einar up as a woman, and pretend that he’s his fictional cousin “Lili”. However, this little game awakens something deep within Einar, and he can’t stop wanting to be Lili even after the party. As Einar moves closer to becoming Lili, Gerda wrestles with how to support her husband even though supporting him will ultimately mean losing Einar to his new identity.

While the title may seem to refer to Lili, for most of the movie, The Danish Girl refers to Gerda as well, and it’s the better for focusing on both characters. If the movie were solely about Einar’s transition to Lili, it would isolate him and make him “the other,” and it would reduce The Danish Girl to a history lesson about transgender people. If it only focused on Gerda, then a transgender character only exists to educate a cisgender person. The trick of Lucinda Coxon ’s script is reframing Lili Elbe’s tale as a love story and letting that serve both characters.

However, as the film goes on, the script has trouble navigating the balance between the Einar and Gerda, and it begins to wander as neither is sure of how to proceed. Doctors think Einar is insane, Gerda doesn’t want to lose her husband, but they both know that the right thing to do is to let Einar complete his transition and become Lili. The film wanders in its second half, and while the transformation of Einar and Gerda’s relationship is necessary, it removes some of the strength from the overall narrative to the point where Gerda has to pointedly tell Einar (and the audience), “Not everything is about you.”

It’s a shame that the second half lacks the strength of the first because not only are the two characters great together, but also it also explores gender roles in a thoughtful way. Hooper touches on Gerda’s powerful feminine gaze as it relates to her art, and Einar, in his first outing as Lili, discovers how drastically different his place is as a woman when interacting with men. The Danish Girl doesn’t dive into the complexity and fluidity of gender roles or the power of the masculine or feminine gaze, but the inclusion of these issues makes it clear that Hooper understands a transgender story presents unique aspects as opposed to a generalized civil rights tale.

And while I’m sure other films will deal with gender roles as they relate to trans issues, Hooper is content to promote peace, love, and understanding with his extremely palatable film. Everything is lovingly shot and scored as if the subject matter is already primed to upset the audience if even a hair is out of place. Hooper carefully paints by numbers with immaculate framing and gorgeous production design, and it feels like the film is fighting to win over people who might reject trans people out of hand. The thinking seems to be that if the package is pretty enough, people will warm to what’s on the inside.

As a country, we’re still at the “education” level when it comes to transgender, and while Danish Girl never becomes pedantic, it does feel almost gratingly self-aware. I admire that it doesn’t want to offend, but sometimes it goes too far in the opposite direction and can be maddeningly self-conscious, especially near the end when the story becomes somewhat mawkish. Only Redmayne and Vikander’s towering performances keep the film from teetering into Oscar-bait self-parody.

The Danish Girl further exemplifies what makes Redmayne not just a talented actor, but what makes him a unique actor. Paired with his Oscar-winning performance from The Theory of Everything , The Danish Girl shows Redmayne as an actor who speaks volumes with his body and his eyes. Granted, those are tools of any great actor, but Redmayne always comes off like he’s using every resource available to him without chewing the scenery. He speaks volumes when his eyes light up at the mere memory of being Lili; every movement seems precise and considered.

For Vikander, The Danish Girl is a capper on a breakout year for her. It’s tough to say which performance is better—this or Ex Machina —but The Danish Girl is just as much her movie as it is Redmayne’s, and she has to navigate a distinctive emotional minefield. Gerda’s love for her husband means that he’ll disappear. It takes an astounding well of compassion and strength to tell someone you love that they would be better off as someone else, but Vikander pulls it off with maturity and a surprising blend of vulnerability and fortitude.

It seems silly that we need a movie about the importance of showing love towards people who are different, and the immediacy of The Danish Girl reflects poorly on our standing as a society, although the film’s existence also shows that we’re slowly getting better. Ten years ago, I wasn’t even aware of the term “cisgender”, and I went to Oberlin, which is about as liberal as a liberal art college can be. While we still have a long way to go when it comes to transgender education, The Danish Girl is a well-meaning, well-considered, and well-taken step.

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Movie Review: The Danish Girl (2015)

Aaron Leggo
Movie Reviews
3 responses
--> February 9, 2016

The story of Danish painter Einar Wegener’s transition into Lili Elbe seems tailor-made for cinematic examination. There’s a physical aspect that can be attended to visually as Lili (Eddie Redmayne, Oscar winner for “ The Theory of Everything ”) comes to the external forefront when Einar begins wearing dresses and wigs. And there’s a deeply internal aspect as Lili struggles with being an outsider and wrestles with the challenges of her new life. There’s a lot of potential there, so the whole story as explored in The Danish Girl feels a bit like a deflating balloon once Tom Hooper gets his hands all over it.

Hooper is allergic to nuance, which would seem a key ingredient in capturing Lili’s experiences. Perhaps a certain bluntness isn’t instantly out of line, but this movie requires a sensitivity and at least an attempt at understanding that feels human and organic. Hooper’s approach is robotic instead, stiffly navigating Lili’s arc and transforming what should be a bold step ahead for mainstream cinema joining the trans conversation into something that teeters perilously close to parody.

Everything feels overly calculated from the start, so we see how much easier life as a painter is for Einar than for his wife Gerda (Alicia Vikander, “ Ex Machina ”). At a gallery, all the aristocratic men gather around Einar to praise his repetitive work, while the clearly more talented Gerda struggles to even get her work displayed. It’s not exactly a subtle commentary on gender inequality.

Soon after, we witness Einar and Gerda be very much in love, but when the subject of their courtship comes up in a conversation with friends, Gerda claims that kissing Einar in those early days was like kissing herself. Oh, the metaphorical implications! The movie becomes littered with such lines, constantly struggling to explain Einar’s existence and experience in superficially feminine terms.

Redmayne’s rotten performance doesn’t exactly help counter Hooper’s heavy hand. In the early scenes, the actor projects a deep voice for his scenes as Einar, but once Lili blooms, Redmayne adopts a breathy whisper. Like most things in The Danish Girl , it’s not necessarily a bad idea on paper, but the execution is just too loud, too obvious, too comically simplistic, as if Lili is nothing more than a pair of girly lips speaking softly.

Lili’s emergence begins when Gerda needs Einar to wear a dress as a stand-in model for a painting she’s trying to complete, which is then followed by a game of dress-up that allows the conflicted painter to finally confront who she truly is. As Lili moves to the forefront, Gerda tries desperately to stand by her partner through thick and thin, even though she misses Einar terribly.

This element of the story has potential and since the movie wants to be a love story more than anything else, there’s plenty of attention given to the challenges of continuing their relationship. But for all the impressive effort that Vikander puts forth, Gerda has little to do but be a Generic Supportive Wife™, a standard role in movies about married protagonists going through turbulent times.

The screenplay by Lucinda Coxon, adapting David Ebershoff’s novel, simply can’t find much for Gerda to do and Vikander seems entirely responsible for giving the character some personality in spite of how empty a vessel the character is written as. So then we’re back to Lili and Redmayne’s transparent performance, as blatantly straining to show the strings of his craft as any actor in a major role this year.

Lili’s story feels trivialized by Redmayne’s work here, which at least makes a startling companion piece with his much-maligned villain turn in the Wachowski’s action pic “ Jupiter Ascending .” There, Redmayne played his strange role in an epically over-the-top key that lasted for the whole movie. He also vacillated between a breathy whisper and a more booming delivery, but for a colorful B-movie like “Jupiter Ascending,” the nutty loudness of the performance, the sheer theatricality of it all, felt justified. Here, it seems imperative that he achieve something more honest and true, something closer to a genuine human experience than a bid for awards attention.

Like Vikander, he’s let down by the script and by Hooper as well, though. At one point, Lili attends a peep show where he watches a woman sensually undress on the other side of a window. Bringing sexuality and sensuality into the conversation seems appropriate, but the whole point of the scene is to show how Lili is mimicking the woman’s movements, boiling femininity down to mere flowing hand gestures.

The Danish Girl certainly means well, but it’s a silly reduction of a serious subject. That it’s all hung on a bad lead performance further cripples its dramatic strength. If there are positives to take away, they lie in the evocative production design, bringing to life a quaint and intimate look at 1920s Copenhagen and Paris, as well as some excellent costume work. The clunky script actually benefits Hooper’s visual quirks, too, making his signature needlessly odd angles at least distractedly entertaining instead of the irritating distraction they usually are.

Hooper’s direction of the camera being more forgivable this time around simply illuminates how problematic everything else is, though. Pretty costumes and pretty buildings are fine support for a good movie, but they can’t do much to save a bad one. The Danish Girl makes puppets of its characters when it intends to make them human. And when it reduces them to symbols, well, Hooper gives us a final shot involving a representative scarf that should make everyone rethink the possibility that the movie might actually be a comedy. This story deserves more than to end up unintentionally funny. Hooper seems well aware that this is not a laughing matter, but he fails to capture that it’s not a mechanical one, either.

Tagged: marriage , novel adaptation , painter , transgender

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'Movie Review: The Danish Girl (2015)' have 3 comments

February 9, 2016 @ 10:38 pm jdkeefer

Pushing the LBGT agenda forward.

February 12, 2016 @ 4:29 pm Sharon

Eddie Redmayne must have done something right with the role otherwise he wouldn’t have garnered a nomination for Best Actor.

February 27, 2016 @ 8:53 am nic

Exceptionally boring film. The dialogue contained not a single memorable line. The direction was of the plodding variety. The level of passion exhibited by the characters did not even approach what you find in a cheap porn video. I could not relate to these people, and didn’t care what happened to them. The photography was great but you can find great photography without having to sit through 90 minutes of drivel. More parody than what it’s meant to be.

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The Danish Girl

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Caitlyn Jenner is a transgender icon. But nearly a century ago, Danish painter Einar Wegener became a pioneer in gender-reassignment surgery. You can’t take your eyes off Eddie Redmayne ( The Theory of Everything ), who is flat-out fabulous as Einar. As he is as Lili Elbe, the woman who begins to emerge when Einar’s artist wife, Gerda (Alicia Vikander), asks him to model in stockings and heels.

Director Tom Hooper dodges the biopic clichés in Lucinda Coxon’s script by pushing the actors to live in the spaces between words. Vikander does wonders as a wife who stands by her woman. And Redmayne deserves every superlative, showing Lili experimenting with her new feminine wiles. Through Redmayne, we feel Lili’s power in a room of admirers, and her fear of what’s next. The film never gets too graphic about sex or surgery. What Hooper has crafted is a work of probing intelligence and passionate heart.

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The Danish Girl: A Compelling Portrait of Gender Identity and Love on the Big Screen

The Danish Girl is a movie that has been making waves ever since its release in 2015. Based on the true story of Lili Elbe, one of the first people to undergo gender reassignment surgery, this film is a powerful exploration of gender identity, love, and acceptance. Directed by Tom Hooper and featuring an all-star cast, The Danish Girl has been praised for its stunning visuals, its sensitive treatment of its subject matter, and its ability to spark important conversations about the transgender experience. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at what makes The Danish Girl such a compelling portrait of gender identity and love on the big screen.

The Danish Girl Movie Review 1680787365121

Introduction to the movie

Get ready to step into the world of the groundbreaking and emotional film, “The Danish Girl”. Based on the true story of Lili Elbe, this movie will take you on a journey of self-discovery and the pursuit of true identity. Eddie Redmayne delivers an incredible performance as Lili, a transgender woman in the 1920s. Alicia Vikander also shines as Lili’s supportive wife, Gerda. Directed by Tom Hooper , “The Danish Girl” is a must-see for anyone looking for a thought-provoking and heartwarming cinema experience.

Brief plot summary

“The Danish Girl” is a 2015 biographical drama film directed by Tom Hooper , based on the novel of the same name by David Ebershoff . The movie is set in the 1920s and tells the story of Lili Elbe, one of the first transgender women to undergo sex reassignment surgery. The plot revolves around Lili’s struggle for acceptance and understanding, both from her loved ones and society. The movie features stunning performances from Eddie Redmayne , who portrays Lili, and Alicia Vikander, who plays her wife Gerda. “The Danish Girl” is a beautifully shot and emotionally charged movie that explores themes of identity, love, and self-discovery, making it a must-watch for cinema and movie lovers alike.

Discussion of the main characters

Let’s dive into the discussion of the main characters in “The Danish Girl” movie review. Eddie Redmayne portrays Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe, a transgender woman, with such sensitivity and nuance that it’s hard not to be moved by his performance. Alicia Vikander shines as Gerda Wegener, Einar’s supportive wife and a talented artist in her own right. The chemistry between the two actors is palpable, and their performances carry the emotional weight of the story. The supporting cast, including Ben Whishaw and Matthias Schoenaerts, also deliver solid performances. Overall, the portrayal of the characters in “The Danish Girl” is one of the film’s strongest points.

The Danish Girl Movie Review 1680787366572

Historical context of the story

The Danish Girl movie is set in the early 1920s, a time when society was still grappling with issues of gender identity and sexual orientation. The story is based on the true life of Lili Elbe, one of the first known transgender women to undergo sex reassignment surgery. The historical context of the movie is integral to understanding the struggles that Lili and her partner, Gerda, faced as they tried to navigate a world that was hostile to their love and their identities. The movie is a poignant reminder of the progress that has been made in LGBTQ+ rights, as well as a call to continue fighting for the rights of all marginalized communities.

Analysis of the cinematography and visual elements

The cinematography and visual elements in The Danish Girl are nothing short of breathtaking. Director Tom Hooper masterfully captures the beauty and complexity of the human form through his use of lighting and camera angles. The film’s color palette is also a standout feature, with muted tones and soft lighting creating an ethereal atmosphere throughout. These elements work together to immerse the viewer in the story of Lili Elbe’s journey towards self-discovery and acceptance. Whether it’s the delicate close-ups of Eddie Redmayne’s expressive face or the sweeping shots of the stunning Danish countryside, every frame of The Danish Girl is a work of art.

Evaluation of the acting performances

When it comes to evaluating the acting performances in “The Danish Girl”, it’s hard not to be impressed. Eddie Redmayne delivers a stunning performance as Lili Elbe, a transgender woman struggling to come to terms with her identity in a time when it was not widely accepted. His portrayal is nuanced, sensitive, and powerful. Equally impressive is Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener, Lili’s wife who stands by her throughout her transition. She brings complexity and depth to the role, conveying a range of emotions with ease. Overall, the acting in “The Danish Girl” is top-notch and is sure to leave viewers moved and inspired.

The Danish Girl Movie Review 1680787367317

Themes explored in the movie

The Danish Girl is a movie that explores themes such as gender identity, love, and acceptance. The film tells the story of Lili Elbe, a transgender woman, and her journey towards becoming her true self. It depicts the struggles and challenges that Lili faces in a society that is not yet ready to accept such differences in gender identity. The movie also explores the relationship between Lili and her wife, Gerda, and how their love evolves and endures throughout Lili’s transition. Overall, The Danish Girl is a poignant and thought-provoking film that sheds light on a sensitive topic and encourages viewers to embrace diversity and humanity.

Discussion of any controversies surrounding the movie

When it comes to “The Danish Girl,” there are indeed controversies surrounding the movie. Some people argue that the film is not an accurate portrayal of transgender individuals or their experiences. Others feel that the casting of a cisgender actor in a transgender role was inappropriate and perpetuates the erasure of trans actors in Hollywood . However, despite these criticisms, the movie has also been praised for its beautiful cinematography, strong performances, and heartfelt storytelling. Ultimately, the controversy surrounding “The Danish Girl” speaks to larger conversations about representation and inclusion in the film industry.

Comparison to the book (if applicable)

The Danish Girl movie is based on a novel by David Ebershoff . While the movie stays true to the main plot and characters of the book, it does omit some of the details and nuances present in the novel. However, the film does an excellent job of bringing the story to life with stunning visuals and incredible performances from Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander. The movie also adds some emotional depth and complexity to the characters, making it an enjoyable watch for both those who have read the book and those who have not.

Conclusion and overall rating of the movie

In conclusion, “The Danish Girl” is a masterpiece that showcases the emotional, physical, and psychological journey of a transgender woman in the early 20th century. The film is beautifully directed and acted, with Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander delivering stunning performances. The storyline is both touching and powerful, highlighting the struggles and discrimination that the LGBTQ+ community faces even today. Overall, this movie deserves a rating of 9 out of 10 for its exceptional storytelling, cinematography, and performances that leave a lasting impact on the audience.

For more information about The Danish Girl movie review, including movie details, cast information, etc.. check out the filmaffinity page .

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Alien: romulus box office - it's now the second movie in franchise history to surge past major milestone, uglies ending explained: what happened to peris addressed by director, the danish girl is a beautiful film with brave performances - though hooper often struggles to translate lili elbe's life into memorable movie drama..

Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne) and his wife Gerda Gottlieb (Alicia Vikander) are staples of the Denmark art scene. While the pair's reputation stems from Einar's work as a landscape artist, Einar dedicates a significant amount of time to supporting Gerda's efforts as a portrait painter - to ensure that his wife's talents are not eclipsed by his rising fame. A doting husband, Einar's love for Gerda is apparent to all of their friends; yet, Einar is harboring a secret - a secret that will change the pair's relationship forever.

When Einar substitutes for one of Gerda's female models (posing in a dress and stockings), the landscape painter realizes he is more comfortable presenting as a woman than a man. Husband and wife embrace the revelation, creating the persona of Lili Elbe, so that Einar can live openly as a woman. Spurred by Lili's transformation, Gerda funnels her emotions into a new series of portraits - surpassing Einar's prior success with paintings of Lili. However, as Lili disassociates from Einar, she becomes increasingly depressed by her male form - forcing the couple into a series of tough decisions and dangerous medical procedures, so that Lili can be made whole.

Eddie Redmayne as Einar Wegener in 'The Danish Girl'

Based on David Ebershoff's fictionalized telling of Lili Elbe's journey into transgender self-discovery, The Danish Girl was adapted for the big screen by writer Lucinda Coxon and director Tom Hooper ( The King's Speech ). Ebershoff's award-winning novel took liberties with Lili Elbe and Gerda Gottlieb's story; though, even when the book attempted to compartmentalize Elbe's experience into a straightforward narrative, The Danish Girl was still an insightful and humane glimpse into gender identity. Building on the novel's foundation, The Danish Girl is a beautiful film with brave performances - though Hooper often struggles to translate Lili Elbe's life into memorable movie drama.

The Danish Girl lives up to the woman who inspired it; yet, Elbe's story is the most interesting and successful aspect of Hooper's movie adaptation. Coxon and the director try to pack in as much of Elbe's experience (filtered through the lens of Ebershoff's fictional telling) as possible but the sensitive and deeply personal subject matter gets undercut by comparatively standard docudrama narrative beats and fictionalized re-imagining that regularly distort actual events to produce a more digestible viewing. Understandably, it was necessary to both chart the breadth of Elbe's journey from husband to transgender icon and fit the tale into a palatable narrative but in its effort to highlight key moments, The Danish Girl often muddles its titular figure with bullet-points that are more focused on what happened than producing nuanced reflection.

Alicia Vikander as Gerda Gottlieb in 'The Danish Girl'

After an Oscar-winning turn in The Theory of Everything , it should come as little surprise that Eddie Redmayne is enchanting in the roles of Einar Wegener and Lili Elbe. Hopper supports his actor with small flourishes that emphasize Einar's preoccupation with feminine form, mannerisms, and clothing, and while Redmayne's work as Einar is solid, the actor shines brightest in his portrayal of Lili. In less talented hands, under less sincere direction, portraying Lili could have been a marketing gimmick but The Danish Girl works hard to ensure that Lili isn't just Redmayne in makeup and female clothing. She's a fully-formed character, distinct from Einar - a prisoner in a foreign body that, above all else, yearns to feel comfortable in her own skin. It's a convincing performance - one that is made all the more impactful when combined with Alicia Vikander's take on Gerda Gottlieb.

Gerda's arc in The Danish Girl produces many of the film's most profound scenes but also accounts for several of its biggest missed opportunities. A significant portion of The Danish Girl follows Gerda's efforts to satisfy her own ambitions and needs while still supporting Lili in her transformation. Yet, outside of Lili, nearly every character that Gerda encounters is designed, with a heavy hand, to emphasize the Wegener's increasingly complex (and tangled) marriage.

Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander in 'The Danish Girl'

In particular, the inclusion of Einar's childhood friend, Hans Axgil (Matthias Schoenaerts) is an example of Hooper's struggle to balance what is interesting about Lili and Gerda with what is necessary for The Danish Girl . The dynamic between Hans, Gerda, and Lili is intriguing but the character becomes less impactful the more Hooper commits to his inclusion - and takes the spotlight off of Lili and Gerda.

Any film, especially a docudrama, is challenged with finding the right balance between covering important bases and removing facade for fresh interpretation. In spite of great character drama, The Danish Girl jumps from one plot point to the next in an attempt to cover ten-plus years worth of history in a single narrative - while chronicling both Lili and Gerda's perspectives on love, identity, gender, and marriage. It's an ambitious mix, and Hooper succeeds more often than he falls short, providing plenty of thoughtful insight along the way, but The Danish Girl is still clumsy in its execution - mired by melodrama that is, on the surface, interesting but doesn't actually develop into comparatively meaningful payoff.

Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe in 'The Danish Girl'

Given the subject matter, and some genuinely disturbing scenes of early 1900s healthcare, The Danish Girl will not be as approachable to casual viewers as The King's Speech - but Lili's story is well-worth seeing. Hooper offers a striking glimpse into the lives of Einar Wegener, Gerda Gottlieb, and Lili Elbe - albeit a glimpse that is limited by relatively standard docudrama contrivances (often substituting fact for dramatized fiction). Both Redmayne and Vikander deliver convincing and respectful depictions of their real-life counterparts - with an especially earnest exploration of the pair's complicated relationship that, though unorthodox, is a heartening example of love in the face of uncertainty.

Hooper aims high with The Danish Girl , and falters in the process, but the filmmaker once again succeeds where it matters most: imbuing larger-than-life historical figures with humanity and a framework through which the filmmaker can comment on modern day social issues.

The Danish Girl runs 120 minutes and is Rated R for some sexuality and full nudity. Now playing in theaters.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comment section below.

The Danish Girl

Based on the life of Danish painter Lili Elbe, The Danish Girl stars Eddie Redmayne as Elbe, who as a trans woman in the 1920s was among the first individuals to receive gender-affirming surgery. The film chronicles Lili's transition, assisted by her wife and fellow artist, Gerda Wegener. Alicia Vikander, Ben Whishaw, Sebastian Koch, and Amber Heard also star.

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The Danish Girl Review

01 Jan 2016

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Danish Girl, The

Tom Hooper has made a career out of tackling subjects in which audiences have an active investment before buying a ticket, be it itinerant football managers ( The Damned United ), the Queen Mum ( The King’s Speech ) or dreaming a dream of times gone by ( Les Misérables ). It may start in 1926, but The Danish Girl nails a zeitgeist-y hot-button topic of transgender issues led by (but not limited to) Caitlyn Jenner. It’s a beautifully mounted, restrained picture but no less moving for it. Einar/Lili’s body is biologically male but on the inside she is female. Her true self can be captured in a painting but not in a mirror. The gulf between these two positions is heartbreaking, and it is this space The Danish Girl rewardingly explores.

The screenplay, by Lucinda Coxon based on David Ebershoff’s novel, takes its time establishing Einar and Gerda Wegener’s happy marriage, the disjunct in their careers as artists (Einar is acclaimed, Gerda isn’t), with only hints of what is to follow (Einar runs a hand absent-mindedly along a row of women’s clothing). Things heat up after Einar, encouraged by Gerda, attends a bohemian party as her newly formed alter ego, “cousin Lili”. She gets a nosebleed after being chatted up by Ben Whishaw’s charmer, Henrik (“You’re different from most girls”), but the experience is revelatory.

What follows are two intertwined stories. The first is about how Einar transitions to Lili, studying women at the market or at a Paris peep show, becoming a whizz at make-up and getting beaten up, before undergoing an operation that will bring her body in line with who she really is. Redmayne’s fine bone-china features are prime movers in all of this being convincing but so is his performance, reticent, vulnerable and acutely observed. It’s less flashy than The Theory Of Everything but no less satisfying.

Yet the second through-line, how Gerda copes with this, is even more gripping. Initially she is curious and playful, helping her husband dress up and experiment, but at the point where you feel she would explode, she proves astonishingly supportive towards her partner’s plight. Vikander eats this all up with a spoon, by turns energetic, winning, raw and compassionate. Between this, Ex Machina and a sparky turn in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. , it seems she can do anything.

Cynics may bash the approach for being too conventional for the adventurous subject matter (compare Tangerine ), but Hooper’s filmmaking is impeccable, flitting between beautifully bleak Scandinavian landscapes and oddly framed close-ups of Redmayne’s angelic face. The director has an equally firm grasp on tone. Rather than duck the big scenes, such as Einar’s revelry at first holding a dress, Hooper plays them with delicacy and tact. The result is absolutely intoxicating.

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The danish girl.

Common Sense Says
Parents Say 3 Reviews
Kids Say 9 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Great performance in fact-based transgender story.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 17+?

Male character's naked bottom shown -- also full-frontal view (in front of a

Two bullies beat Lili up. Bloody face. A bloody nose. Arguing. Brief fish guttin

Cigarette and cigar smoking. Drinking champagne in a social setting. Main charac

Any Positive Content?

Explores the emotional and spiritual pain of feeling trapped, as well as the soc

Lili isn't perfect, but she could be an inspiration to LGBTQ viewers who are

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Male character's naked bottom shown -- also full-frontal view (in front of a mirror), with tucked-in penis. Naked female breasts and bottom. A man watches a woman stripping and caressing herself in a "peep show" booth. A transgender woman and a man kiss; he grabs her crotch. A married couple has sex in bed and is comfortable with each other undressing. A book includes an explicit drawing of a penis. Sexy nightgown.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

Two bullies beat Lili up. Bloody face. A bloody nose. Arguing. Brief fish gutting.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Cigarette and cigar smoking. Drinking champagne in a social setting. Main character takes prescription pills.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Explores the emotional and spiritual pain of feeling trapped, as well as the social problems that come with being misunderstood (and seen as a "freak"). Offers empathy and support for people who want to express who they are inside.

Positive Role Models

Lili isn't perfect, but she could be an inspiration to LGBTQ viewers who are looking to understand their feelings and find a connection to the world around them. Gerda does her best to support and accept Lili for who she is.

Parents need to know that The Danish Girl is based on the true story of the first transgender person to attempt a sex-change operation (played by Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne ), and it could prove inspiring to transgender/LGTBQ viewers and those connected to or concerned about them. The sexual content and discussions about transgenderism are handled thoughtfully and carefully, but you can expect scenes of graphic male and female nudity (including full-frontal images) and sex. Bullies beat up the main character (some blood shown), and there are some intense discussions. Language isn't really an issue, but because the story is set in the 1920s, characters smoke cigarettes frequently. There's also cigar smoking, social drinking (champagne), and some prescription pill use. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (3)
Kids say (9)

Based on 3 parent reviews

It depends on the kid

What's the story.

In early 1920s Copenhagen, Einar Wegener ( Eddie Redmayne ) and his wife, Gerda ( Alicia Vikander ), are happily living and working as artists. When a model doesn't show up one day, Gerda asks Einar to pose while wearing a dress. Einar finds the experience profoundly changing and decides he wants to go to a party dressed as a woman; Gerda cheerfully agrees. After a tentative kiss from a partygoer ( Ben Whishaw ), it becomes clear that this is more than just dress-up for Einar. He realizes that he already considers himself a woman, whom he calls Lili, and is trapped in the wrong body. Einar begins living as Lili, and when she learns of a surgeon ( Sebastian Koch ) who has developed an experimental procedure to change a person's sex, Lili knows she has no choice but to try.

Is It Any Good?

Best director Oscar-winner Tom Hooper has delivered another ready-made movie for awards season -- polite, highly polished, and perhaps a bit safe, but with another great performance by Redmayne. The star (who won the Academy Award for The Theory of Everything ) achieves another complete transformation here, subtly changing from awkward to comfortable in his female identity. The Gerda role is less strong; she only gets to react to Einar/Lili, and Vikander can't fully bring her to life.

THE DANISH GIRL is somewhat disappointingly handled with kid gloves; it's soft, falling back on montages and skipping over emotional uncertainties. But Hooper ( The King's Speech , Les Miserables ) and cinematographer Danny Cohen mirror the main characters' artistic creations with strikingly beautiful landscapes, and Hooper adds drama with his trademark use of characters placed in odd corners of the frame. Ultimately, it has some interesting things to say about sexual identity, and it's a good stepping stone.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how The Danish Girl handles the subject of sexuality . How much is shown and not shown? How does the tone of the nude scenes vary? Are some more "sexual" than others? Why do you think that is?

Talk about being transgender and what kinds of issues someone might face upon feeling as though they were born into the wrong physical body. Do you think the movie explains the situation well?

What do you think made the bully characters so angry about Lili's presence? Why do people often react violently to things they fear or don't understand?

Movie Details

In theaters : November 27, 2015
On DVD or streaming : March 1, 2016
Cast : Eddie Redmayne , Alicia Vikander , Matthias Schoenaerts
Director : Tom Hooper
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Focus Features
Genre : Drama
Run time : 120 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : some sexuality and full nudity
Award : Academy Award
Last updated : May 25, 2023

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Entertainment
<i>The Danish Girl</i> Reflects on Love’s Power to Transform

The Danish Girl Reflects on Love’s Power to Transform

T he Danish Girl seems like an unusually timely movie. Director Tom Hooper’s film, opening Nov. 27, tells the story of Lili Elbe, who in 1930 underwent the first well-documented gender-reassignment surgery and transitioned into a woman. Stories about transgender people have been received rapturously over the past two years: from Orange Is the New Black’s story line about a transgender prison inmate to Transparent’s tale of a father in transition to Caitlyn Jenner’s splashy Vanity Fair cover and docuseries I Am Cait. This movie’s account of a little-known pioneer seems tailor-made for audiences–and critics–in 2015.

But when the script first landed in Hooper’s lap back in 2008, he says, it was far from commercial, and he was an unlikely candidate to make it so. At the time, he had just one feature film to his name. That changed after Hooper won an Academy Award for directing 2010’s The King’s Speech and achieved box-office success with his 2012 adaptation of Les Misérables. “Now people think it’s an obvious choice for me to have made,” he says. “It speaks to the fact that there’s been a revolution in the acceptance of trans stories.”

The Danish Girl is a thinly fictionalized retelling of the life of Elbe, a Danish painter who lived the first four decades of her life as a man named Einar Wegener. As played by Eddie Redmayne–fresh off last year’s Best Actor win at the Oscars for his role as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything–Lili, while living as Einar, begins to sense that her starched collars and tailored suits are a disguise for her true identity as a woman. “Because there were no predecessors, there was no vocabulary for her to be able to negotiate what she was going through,” Redmayne says. Instead, the medical establishment pathologized her feelings–which the real Elbe described in her memoirs as the sensation of two people fighting for one body–as perverted and delusional. But with the support of her wife Gerda, played by the Swedish actor Alicia Vikander, she begins to live authentically.

Hooper was transfixed by the script–adapted by Lucinda Coxon from David Ebershoff’s 2000 novel of the same name–which, the director says, was the first in his career to bring him to tears. Tempting as it may be to label the movie a transgender story, it’s as much a portrait of a marriage as of an unwitting trailblazer. Gerda is a working painter who has little regard for gender boundaries–it was rare for a woman at the time to work, let alone as an esteemed artist–and she’s a critical part of Lili’s journey. Through her eyes, the audience witnesses the blossoming of Lili, from a playful stand-in for one of Gerda’s portrait models into a fully realized identity, both inside and out.

“I believe she could see something even before Lili was able to dare confront it herself,” says Vikander, whose portrayal of Gerda is generating Oscar buzz, capping off a breakout year in which she’s played everything from a humanoid robot in Ex Machina to the pacifist Vera Brittain in Testament of Youth. Gerda, she says, was “able to see [that] above anything, the person that you love needs to be able to find a way to love themself.”

To prepare for their roles, the actors relied on interviews with transgender women and their partners, who, Redmayne says, told them without exception, “There is no question I won’t answer.” Redmayne recalls a woman named Cadence Valentine, who spoke about the fundamental need to simply be herself. “This term, to be yourself, feels like a basic human right,” Redmayne says, “yet what trans people have to battle to be themselves seems so extreme.” Valentine’s journey was in many ways enabled, like Lili’s, by “how deep her partner’s pool of empathy was.”

Vikander’s conversations with partners whose loved ones have transitioned did not yield any sweeping generalizations–“Every single story is extremely different,” she says–but she did hear one phrase so often from the partners of trans people that it became a sort of silent mantra for her Gerda: “I was transitioning too.”

The fact that Redmayne had to undergo an education at all was cause for criticism from some members of the transgender community, who would have preferred to see a trans actor cast as Lili. (Before Redmayne, Nicole Kidman was attached to the role.) It’s a frustration Redmayne readily acknowledges. “There has been a huge amount of cisgender success on the back of trans stories,” he concedes, using a recently coined term that describes people who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth–in other words, people who are not transgender. But he hopes the discussion will lead to the casting of more transgender actors in not only trans but cisgender roles, as transgender actor Rebecca Root does in The Danish Girl, playing a female nurse.

In that sense, timeliness has its challenges. Telling Elbe’s story in the politically charged climate of 2015 brought with it a level of scrutiny that screenwriter Coxon says “simply wasn’t there” a decade ago. But that freedom allowed her to avoid the entanglements of identity politics and keep her focus on Lili and Gerda. As she explains, “It’s about these two women of such rare vision and courage, who have this extraordinary love story. I’ve never thought of it as ‘the transgender project.'” And as transgender stories are seen more frequently than ever before, it doesn’t have to be. In The Danish Girl, Lili doesn’t have to be an icon–she’s just a person, caught up in a love story as universal as its circumstances are specific.

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Write to Eliza Berman at [email protected]

Tiffanyyong.com

The Danish Girl Movie Review

The Danish Girl Movie Review | by tiffanyyong.com

Recommended audience: fans of eddie redmayne, alicia vikander, ben whishaw, sebastian koch, amber heard, matthias schoenaerts and tom hooper movie fans.

The Danish Girl Movie Synopsis

The Danish Girl Viewer Rating: 4.5/5 ****

The danish girl movie review:.

While this story speaks of the beguiling true love, the polished ending somehow made the perfect story a little imperfect. Truth sucks, and perhaps the true ending of the not-so-perfect story might just give “The Danish Girl” the ultimate finale.

Do You Know?

Information from imdb.com

Behind The Scenes and Interviews

Check out The Danish Girl Official Website and Facebook Page ! The Danish Girl is out in cinemas on 7 January 2016.

1/2 of #TheEpiphanyDuplet, Tiffany Yong juggles her ABCs – Acting, Blogging and Coaching/Consulting as she is fuelled by passion and drive to succeed.

It is not easy to make a living in Singapore just purely based on Acting, so with Blogging to help her with her online presence, and Coaching kids drama, private tutoring and freelance social media consulting to finance her life, she is currently leading the life most people hope to have: Living the Dream!

14 thoughts on “The Danish Girl Movie Review”

wow this reminds me of the Caitlyn Jenner story. I am not reading your review as I want to watch the movie. Thanks for sharing the trailer Tiffany.

i think i saw the trailer way back. i love the dresses in the movie tho.

Great review, i’ve seen a lot about this lately. Can’t wait to watch it x

I saw the trailer of this movie and was stunned. I’m pretty sure he’s gonna get his 2nd oscar now…

This is something I want to watch since they’re nominated in a couple of awards for Golden Globe. Even though they didn’t win, I still want to watch it. Thanks for sharing.

The movie seems to be well made, but i doubt if i would watch it. Im not into this kind of movie story. I like the one with lots of actions, like the coming batman v superman

Interesting plot. I just doubt if it’s already on the big screen here. Hopefully it will be shown here too.

It’s about time they made a movie about a transgender. It will help people be more aware of their plights in the community.

This looks like such a moving movie!! I’m totally going to watch this with my friends! 😀

I can’t wait to watch this film. I was moved when I first saw the trailer. It’s really inspiring to see movies like this being released, I think it helps people be more affectionate towards our lgbt community.

Well this sort of movie its classic and can be draggy as well. Plan to watch it online.

This looks like such an interesting film to watch! Definitely going to keep an eye on this. I might wanna pick up the book first, actually!

This has not yet been shown here. But since Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander are both in the running for multiple acting awards I will not miss this.

Wow, this looks like a must-watch film. I hope to find time to be able to see this one. Very interesting.

The Danish Girl

A fictitious love story loosely inspired by the lives of Danish artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. Lili and Gerda's marriage and work evolve as they navigate Lili's groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.
Copenhagen, Denmark, 1926. Einar Wegener and his wife Gerda are a happily married couple. Both are artists, Einar preferring landscapes and she portraits. One day Einar poses for a portrait of Gerda's while wearing a dress. This is initially done as a lark, as is the later attendance at a party dressed as a woman. However, Einar soon discovers that she is in fact a woman and over time prefers being Lili. At first she and Gerda try to have her situation "cured" but this leads nowhere (other than to many doctors trying to have Lili locked up as a pervert and/or lunatic). Her voyage of self-discovery will ultimately lead to her undergoing the first ever sex-change operation. — grantss
Copenhagen, Denmark, 1926. Happily married artists Einar and Gerda Wegener come under strain when Gerda playfully asks her husband to fill in for one of her female models. Suddenly, as Einar reluctantly poses for her wearing an elegant dress, the intimate experience triggers a subtle transformation inside the perplexed painter. Convinced he is Lili, a woman trapped in a man's body, Einar boldly accepts his true self and starts living as a woman. But, to everyone's surprise, the radical change is not an ephemeral caprice. After all, Einar is determined to live his new life to the fullest. Despite facing prejudice, discrimination, social dictations, and public outcry, Einar plucks up the courage to fight for the right to be different and undergoes a highly experimental sex reassignment surgery. The trailblazing decision made Lili a notable transgender pioneer. — Nick Riganas
1926. Copenhagen-based married couple Einar and Gerda Wegener, who are madly in love, have so far tried unsuccessfully to have a child. They both work as artists, and while Einar has a modicum of critical success for his landscapes, Gerda has not had much critical success with her portraits. An innocent enough request by Gerda to her husband leads to Einar exploring his feminine side. While Gerda sees that exploration all in fun, it becomes more for Einar, who, hearkening back to a time long ago in his past, ultimately allows himself truly to believe that he is a woman, "Lili", born into a male body. He wants to experience all that being Lili is, including sexually, and not as Einar pretending to be a woman. The emotions that Gerda develops when she learns what Einar is truly going through spurs some creative energy in her art, which was not present before. Wanting some medical diagnosis for what she is feeling, Lili is told again and again that she is crazy, most physicians who want to institutionalize her on the spot, until she meets Dr. Kurt Warnekros, who believes he can perform two risky gender reassignment surgeries for her fully to become Lili. As such, Lili dreams of getting remarried and having a child in that post-surgery life. Both Lili and Gerda have to decide how long Gerda will go along with Lili for this ride, especially as they both know that the end, if it happens, is that Gerda will lose her husband forever, Lili who states it meaning all of Einar including his art. — Huggo
The film begins with a montage of landscapes. Then we see a painting, which looks just as realistic as the cinematography we have just seen. The artwork is observed by Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander). It is revealed that she is attending an art show when a patron comments that Gerda's work is not as exquisite as her husband's, the artist of the painting Gerda was admiring. The gallery owner declares Gerda's husband, Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne), to be part of the one percent of gifted Danish talents. A title card reads that it is the year 1926 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Einar and Gerda walk home from the art show together. She makes fun of the man declaring Einar part of the one percent. A man shouts down at them to be quiet because it's late at night. They laugh and hurry home. The next morning, Gerda is painting a man's portrait. Simultaneously, Einar visits their friend, Oona Paulson (Amber Heard) at her ballet class. He says he wants to give Gerda space to work and his presence would be distracting. At their home, Gerda tells a middle-aged man who she is painting that men tend to be afraid of the gaze of a woman. Einar is working on a painting of his own, of five trees in the woods, an actual sight in their town. His paintings take much longer to complete than hers, as he is very meticulous at detail. Einar and Gerda are affectionate with each other and they begin to have sex. While she is undressing, he asks her to leave her undergarments on as he finds them beautiful. He caresses her clothes and then they make love. Gerda is finishing a large portrait of a woman but Oola is supposed to serve as her model and she has not arrived. She asks Einar to wear the stockings and shoes so that she can finish painting that part of the picture. He nervously agrees and she has to educate him on how to put the stockings on. She then has him hold the dress up so that it will flow over the stockings properly. Just then, Oola shows up with flowers. She is delighted at the sight of Einar serving as the model and hands him a lily, telling him that that must be his name. Gerda meets with an art collector to evaluate her portraits and paintings, including the one with the stockings. He tells her that sketches of people are commonplace and there is nothing unique about them but she is a good artist who just needs a better subject. When Gerda returns home, she explains the feedback she received to Einar. They begin to kiss and she begins to take off his shirt. Underneath, he is wearing her undergarments. This takes her aback but she doesn't acknowledge it directly and instead, she simply continues touching him underneath the brassiere he is wearing. In the morning, Gerda sketches Einar while he sleeps but in an androgynous way so its not clear if the picture is supposed to be of a male or female. When he wakes up, she tells him how beautiful he is. The next day, Gerda and Einar join Oola for a gathering. Oola tells them that she has had relations with two nearby men at the same time. They are stunned by this and she giggles that its so easy to shock married people. Gerda tells Oola how Einar and her first met when he admired her ankles. He was too shy to ask her out so she did it for him. He was so beautiful that when they kissed, she felt as if she was kissing herself (another woman). This makes Oola blush and Gerda comments that its so easy to shock unmarried people. There is an event that Gerda and Einar are invited to but he doesn't want to go because the people gush over him as an artist. Gerda realizes that he can go in disguise, as Lili. Gerda puts makeup on Einar's face and finds a wig for him. He has transformed and he delights at being able to inhabit the identity of a woman. They attend the party and everyone is told Einar couldn't attend but his cousin, "Lili", has taken his place. Lili is left on his/her own and she catches the eye of Henrik (Ben Whishaw) who is immediately intrigued by "her". They isolate themselves and Henrik flirts with Lili, who is awkward in response. Henrik tells her a man should always ask a woman before he kisses her and then leans in. She pulls away and says he didn't ask. But he tells her he didn't want her to refuse. Gerda walks in and witnesses the two clumsily kissing. Lili begins to have a nosebleed and becomes frightened. Gerda leads her away. At home, Gerda is confused about what she witnessed. She doesn't understand why the game they were playing went so far. Einar tries to explain that he didn't want to kiss Henrik but when he was in the mind of Lili, she did so it was Lili who wanted to, not him. Gerda asks if he has kissed boys before. He says only once, when he was very young with a friend of his. His father saw it happen and got very upset with him. Gerda now has found her subject: she paints Einar as Lili. When she presents these paintings to the art collector, he loves them and wants to have a show with them. The collector wants to meet the model but Gerda tells him it was Einar's cousin who has since left town. At home, Einar is wearing Gerda's undergarments as he looks in the mirror and studies his body. He strips himself bare and then finally removes his trousers. He looks at his penis with disgust and tucks it between his legs. When Gerda gets home to tell Einar of the praise the collector has given her Lili portraits, she is surprised to see Einar dressed as Lili. She wonders if something is the matter with him and suggests they go see a doctor. They do and the doctor makes notes of the nosebleeds, as well as the stomach cramps he imagines having once a month. Einar tries to explain he has always felt like a girl despite being in a male body. The next time Gerda meets the art collector, she is told he sold all the paintings and there is representation interested in her in Paris. He encourages her to go and become an esteemed artist in France. Gerda encourages Einar to join her, as she will need Lili as a model for her paintings. The two of them set out to live in Paris. In France, Einar continues to serve as the model for Gerda's portraits. They seem to be distancing themselves from each other. While Gerda is out that evening, Einar goes to the seedy part of Paris' red-light district and enters a peep-show club. He watches a woman strip naked. But instead of being aroused by her, he starts to mimic her movements. She notices this and they do a back and forth game where they mirror each other. Gerda goes to meet Hans Axgil (Matthias Schoenaerts), a childhood friend of Einar's. Hans tells someone on the phone he must go because he has a "Danish girl" waiting for him (interesting because the movie's title alludes to both Lili and Gerda). He tells Gerda he loves her artwork but he cannot represent her because he doesn't specialize in those kind of paintings. He asks to meet the model and she tells him it is Einar's cousin but she is not around. However, she tells Axgil that Einar is waiting for them at home though. When they get to the house, Einar is dressed as Lili. Gerda has to completely backpedal and explain that this is Einar's cousin and Einar is out. "Lili" brazenly flirts with Hans who is very suspicious. Lili becomes frazzled and runs off. When Gerda comes to join him, he tries to assure himself that Hans has not detected the reality of who he is. Gerda attends an art show for her Lili paintings. Hans is there and he tries to kiss her, knowing that her husband is a transsexual, but she stops him and tells him, "Einar is still my husband". Hence sets up a unique love triangle Hans loves Gerda who loves Einar who loves Hans. All of this overwhelms Gerda who leaves the event despite it pouring down rain, refusing an umbrella in lieu of walking down the street. Hans finds her and brings her to shelter. At home, the three are gathered in the kitchen. Hans reveals to Gerda that he was the childhood friend that had once kissed Einar. Einar was dressed in his grandma's apron while they were playing pretend. Hans thought Einar looked so pretty, he just had to kiss him. He was then sent home while Einar's dad violently responded to his son. Gerda wonders if she has turned Einar into a transsexual when she dressed him up for the event but he tells her he's felt like that his whole life and she merely gave him the first opportunity to experience it. Because he is still confused about his feelings, Gerda and Einar visit various doctors in Paris in hopes that they will be able to make sense of the situation. The first doctor suggests a lobotomy, telling Einar he will make two holes on each side of his head. The second one tells Einar that his diagnosis is bad that he believes Einar is a homosexual. The third excuses himself during the meeting. When Einar looks at his notes, he sees the man suspects that Einar is a schizophrenic. As the doctor rushes back to the office with a security team and a straitjacket, Einar escapes out a window. Oola is in Paris and she tells Einar and Gerda about a doctor who has treated a patient with the same situation as Einar. They meet with the doctor who is progressive and tells that he once met a man who believed he should be a woman, so he set to perform two operations the first, to remove his man bits and after he's recovered his strength, a second, to construct a vagina. But the man got scared and disappeared on the day of the surgery. Excitedly, Einar says that he wouldn't do that. And he agrees to have what will be the first sex change operation. Einar is standing in front of a train, to be taken to the hospital where the surgery will be performed. Gerda tells him she will be there for the surgery but he wants to be alone. Hans tells Einar, "I've loved only a handful of people and you are definitely two of them." Einar is admitted to the hospital. He is giddy with excitement and looks at himself lovingly in the mirror. He then decides not to put his wig on and to instead stylize his own hair in a feminine manner. On the patio of the hospital, a pregnant woman asks "Lili" if she is there because she is going to have a baby. Lili says maybe someday, not knowing what the limitations will be to the surgery (i.e., if she'll be able to get pregnant). The doctor goes over the procedure with Einar/Lili and she glows with anticipation. She tells the doctor she hopes her husband will be handsome like he is and mentions her hope of giving birth. The doctor warns that the surgery will be very brutal but Einar/Lili says she will sleep through it. The first surgery ends up being just as the doctor predicted brutal. Gerda arrive as a surprise, to support Lili. Although she is drained by the operation, Lili is also enthralled that it was performed. She is given estrogen pills to take every few hours but explicitly told to spread them out throughout the day. Although the surgery is only half done (Einar/Lili no longer has a penis but doesn't have a vagina yet), Lili enjoys living her life completely as a woman. Instead of painting, she gets a job as a sales clerk in a local department store. She shares some tips on how to apply perfume to customers, telling them that when she was in Paris, women never applied perfume directly on their skin. They would spray it in the air and then walk into it. This tip is well received. When Lili walks through a park, two local French men heckle her, calling her a lesbian and asking if she has a "hoo hah". When cornered, she punches one of them but the other one retaliates by badly beating up Lili. Gerda runs into Lili in the marketplace, where she is fraternizing with Henrik (the Ben Whishaw character she met when she was first dressed as Lili). Lili visits Gerda's home and tells her she is not romantically linked to Henrik because he is a homosexual. Gerda tries to encourage Lili to paint alongside her like they used to. But Lili is adamant that she has left Einar behind and no longer wants to do the things she did when she was living as a male. She then takes an estrogen pill, which upsets Gerda because Lili has just taken some ten minutes earlier (the doctor emphasized they have to be taken far apart). Lili defensively states that she knows what she's doing. Its obvious she wants to rush the process. Lili arranges to have the second part of her surgery despite Gerda telling her its too early. But the doctor agrees so she returns to the hospital and undergoes the procedure. Both Gerda and Hans are there for support but the doctor tells them the surgery did not gone well and the prognosis does not look good. Gerda and Hans visit Lili in the recovery room and she looks close to death. Nonetheless, she is happy and tells them, in a weak voice, that she finally feels like who she was meant to be. She adds that God made her a girl but there was some mistake in her physicality. Gerda takes Lili outside in a wheelchair so he can get out of the hospital room. Even though she is sick, Lili is happy. But despite her bliss, Lili passes away, leaving Gerda distraught. In the final scene, Hans and Gerda go walking through Denmark and stop at a set of five trees, the ones Einar had been painting early in the film. The scarf that Gerda is wearing blows away in the wind. Hans goes to retrieve it but she tells him to leave it alone. The piece of women's clothing floats in the sky, above the beautiful landscapes that Einar once painted, symbolizing that Lili was finally free.

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The Danish Girl movie review & film summary (2015)
The Danish Girl lacks an immediacy and vibrancy, as well as a genuine sense of emotional connection.
The Danish Girl (2015)
With support from his loving wife Gerda (Alicia Vikander), artist Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne) prepares to undergo one of the first sex-change operations.
Review: 'The Danish Girl,' About a Transgender Pioneer
Nov. 26, 2015. " The Danish Girl," Tom Hooper's new film, is a story of individual struggle that is also a portrait of a marriage. In this respect and others it resembles " The King's ...
The Danish Girl (2015)
The Danish Girl: Directed by Tom Hooper. With Alicia Vikander, Eddie Redmayne, Tusse Silberg, Adrian Schiller. A fictitious love story loosely inspired by the lives of Danish artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. Lili and Gerda's marriage and work evolve as they navigate Lili's groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.
The Danish Girl
The Danish Girl Reviews. The film exudes a winning empathy for the quandary of identity at the center of the narrative. Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 7, 2024. Hooper has over-thought his ...
Venice Film Review: 'The Danish Girl'
Venice Film Review: 'The Danish Girl'. Eddie Redmayne makes the ultimate transition, reteaming with 'Les Miserables' director Tom Hooper in this sensitive, high-profile portrait of transgender ...
Movie Review: Tom Hooper's 'The Danish Girl' Is a Worthy but
Tom Hooper's biopic about a transgender icon has the best of intentions, but doesn't go deep enough into the heart of its subject. The first 20 minutes of The Danish Girl are a breezy romance ...
The Danish Girl Movie Review
Read Matt's The Danish Girl movie review; Tom Hooper's film stars Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, Amber Heard, Sebastian Koch, and Matthias Schoenaerts.
The Danish Girl Review
In the end, one leaves The Danish Girl with a new appreciation of Redmayne and Vikander and, at the same time, wanting to go out and read the actual history of those involved to get the real story.
The Danish Girl review: 'a beautiful, humane and moving biopic'
Oscar nominated film, The Danish Girl, starring Eddie Redmayne Credit: Agatha A. Nitecka/Focus Features via AP. Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander's performances in Tom Hooper's film about Lili ...
The Danish Girl (film)
The Danish Girl (film) The Danish Girl. (film) The Danish Girl is a 2015 biographical romantic drama film directed by Tom Hooper, based on the 2000 novel of the same title by David Ebershoff, and loosely inspired by the lives of Danish painters Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. [5] The film stars Eddie Redmayne as Elbe, one of the first known ...
Movie Review: The Danish Girl (2015)
Movie review of The Danish Girl (2015) by The Critical Movie Critics | A historic love story examination between a transgender pioneer and her wife.
'The Danish Girl' Movie Review
Eddie Redmayne goes deep in 'The Danish Girl,' a biopic on Danish painter and transgender activist Einar Wegener.
The Danish Girl: A Compelling Portrait of Gender Identity and Love on
The Danish Girl is a movie that has been making waves ever since its release in 2015. Based on the true story of Lili Elbe, one of the first people to undergo gender reassignment surgery, this film is a powerful exploration of gender identity, love, and acceptance. Directed by Tom Hooper and featuring an all-star cast, The Danish Girl has been praised for its stunning visuals, its sensitive ...
The Danish Girl Review
The Danish Girl is a beautiful film with brave performances - though Hooper often struggles to translate Lili Elbe's life into memorable movie drama. Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne) and his wife Gerda Gottlieb (Alicia Vikander) are staples of the Denmark art scene. While the pair's reputation stems from Einar's work as a landscape artist, Einar ...
The Danish Girl Review
The Danish Girl Review Einar Wegener (Redmayne) is a painter happily married to wannabe artist Gerda (Vikander). After her model falls through, Einar poses in silk stockings and satin slippers ...
The Danish Girl Movie Review
Great performance in fact-based transgender story. Read Common Sense Media's The Danish Girl review, age rating, and parents guide.
The Danish Girl
The Danish Girl - Metacritic. Summary Inspired by the true story of Danish artists Einar Wegener and his wife Gerda, this tender portrait of a marriage asks: What do you do when someone you love wants to change? It starts with a question, a simple favor asked of a husband by his wife on an afternoon chilled by the Baltic wind while both are ...
The Danish Girl Reflects on Love's Power to Transform
T he Danish Girl seems like an unusually timely movie. Director Tom Hooper's film, opening Nov. 27, tells the story of Lili Elbe, who in 1930 underwent the first well-documented gender ...
Movie review: 'The Danish Girl' is a pretty picture about a transgender
Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander star in a glossy but superficial story about transgender pioneer Lili Elbe.
The Danish Girl Movie Review
The Danish Girl Movie Review: Most people's perception of transgender is linked to Thai's comedic portrayal of the ladyboys, so when I first caught "The Danish Girl"'s trailer, I was intrigued. How will one try to change a discrimination that had existed for so long?
The Danish Girl
Tom Hooper has now become the go-to director for Oscar season. Les Miserables, The King's Speech and now The Danish Girl, a film that's so clearly aim...
The Danish Girl (2015)
Copenhagen, Denmark, 1926. Happily married artists Einar and Gerda Wegener come under strain when Gerda playfully asks her husband to fill in for one of her female models. Suddenly, as Einar reluctantly poses for her wearing an elegant dress, the intimate experience triggers a subtle transformation inside the perplexed painter. Convinced he is Lili, a woman trapped in a man's body, Einar ...

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The Danish Girl: A Compelling Portrait of Gender Identity and Love on the Big Screen

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