Still life, dull drama
Every scene, every image in THE DANISH GIRL is a beautiful work of art. The landscapes; the streets of Copenhagen, Paris and Berlin; elegant galleries and grand rooms in enviable turn-of-the-20th-century European apartments — the locations and sets are presented as exquisitely as any collection of framed masterpieces. Even the characters, whether in passionate conversation or anguished recline, are rapturously posed. This artful presentation makes creative sense — the movie’s main characters are painters and much of the movie is set in art studios and galleries, and the creation of art — whether on a canvas or in human form — fills much of the story runtime.
The approach doesn’t make dramatic sense, however. The movie, like a painting in a museum, only hangs on a wall to be admired. There is no narrative energy, no emotional allure for the audience. THE DANISH GIRL is cinema as still life, the motion in this motion picture frozen in exhibition, a selection of tasteful panoramas and sumptuous portraits. There is no drama here, no turmoil, no vitality … we’re left with the shallow urgency of meaningful glances and discreet reaction.
This is disappointing because the true story of “the Danish girl” is actually remarkable and very timely. Einar and Gerda Gottlieb Wegener were successful bohemian artists in the early 1900s. As Einar gradually accepted his genuine identity as a woman, his wife began painting Einar dressed as “Lili,” portraits that brought Gerda much acclaim. In the 1930s, Einar became one of the first people to undergo sex reassignment surgery, with the full support of his wife.
THE DANISH GIRL is a substantially fictionalized depiction of the true story, as director Tom Hooper and screenwriter Lucinda Coxon follow a tale that better suits the beautiful pictures they’ve imagined. Artificial, certainly, but other filmmakers have managed to make bad biographies good entertainment. Eddie Redmayne, who won the Oscar for Best Actor last year as Stephen Hawking in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, portrays Einar/Lili in a style as mannered as the movie itself, affectation as one-dimensional as the portraits of Lili tastefully strewn around the couple’s apartment. Alicia Viklander, the Swedish actress who excelled as Ava the robot in EX MACHINA, is quite good as Gerda, the wife whose professional and artistic life blooms as her marriage withers. Her performance just isn’t enough to bring this canvas to life.
The problem with THE DANISH GIRL is the beauty’s skin deep. The drama is strictly paint-by-numbers.
