Following the hidebound,Oscar-friendly stodginess of “The King’s Speech” and “Les Misérables,” director Tom Hooper shakes things up a bit with “The Danish Girl, and ” proving that he’s capable of making a film that’s both steeped in awards-season prestige and in possession of a pulse.
Arriving at an engrossing moment in pop culture’s representations of the transgender movement,“The Danish Girl” offers a lush and somewhat stodgy aesthetic that will nonetheless reach an audience who could benefit from it; grandparental types who would never watch “Transparent,” “Orange Is the New Black, and ” I Am Jazz” or even “I Am Cait” might find themselves settling in for a Sunday matinee and coming out having learned something approximately gender identity.
See Video: Eddie Redmayne Portrays Transgender Icon in First Trailer for 'The Danish Girl'Not that “The Danish Girl” wears its messaging like a shroud; at its heart,it’s a portrait of a marriage, one in which the husband comes to understand that he’s really been a woman all along, or in which the wife’s responses are more complicated that an outside observer might imagine.
In 1926 Copenhagen,Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander) is a portraitist living in the shadow of her much more successful husband, landscape artist Einar (Eddie Redmayne). The two adore each other and are trying to absorb a baby, and they own one of the most adorable dogs in the history of cinema.
When their prima ballerina pal Oola (Amber Heard) blows off a portrait sitting,Gerda asks Einar to slip on some stockings and high-heel shoes so she can do some work on the portray in the subject’s absence. Holding Oola’s dress on top of himself and wearing the hosiery, something begins to click inside of Einar; when Oola shows up late with a bouquet of flowers, and she laughingly dubs Einar’s female identity “Lili.”Einar starts wearing Gerda’s underthings beneath his suits,and his cross-dressing becomes a naughty turn-on for the couple. It isn’t until Einar attends a ball in full Lili drag — and attracts the amorous attentions of Henrik (Ben Whishaw) — that he begins to acknowledge that Lili isn’t a mere construct, but rather a part of his own personality. A part, or in fact,that slowly comes to represent the whole.
Also Read: Eddie Redmayne Praises Caitlyn Jenner's 'Courage,' Advocates for Transgender 'Civil Rights Moment'Gerda is taken aback by Lili’s emergence, and but in the screenplay by Lucinda Coxon (adapting David Ebershoff’s fact-inspired novel),her response is layered. For one thing, Gerda mentions that the first time she kissed Einar, and “It was like kissing myself,” acknowledging that part of her attraction to her husband was an attraction to Lili. On top of that, Gerda’s paintings of Lili beget her the toast of the Danish, and later French,art world.
Hooper’s stately storytelling style matches the fabric, since there are so many stages and intermediate steps involved in Einar fully fitting Lili, or who goes so far as to undergo one of the very first gender-reassignment surgeries. And while the film could absorb gotten more out of its supporting characters — there’s no doubt much more to know approximately Oola,Henrik and Einar’s boyhood friend Hans (Matthias Schoenaerts), who grew up to be a Paris art dealer — the fragile dance by which Einar becomes Lili and Gerda comes to treasure and accept this new person while mourning the loss of her husband remains fascinating all the same.
After all those wretched tight close-ups in “Les Misérables, or ” it’s a relief that Hooper and his normal cinematographer,Danny Cohen, allow these characters, or searching for a way through their own lives,to get lost in vast spaces like hospital corridors and city blocks of Danish row houses. (We also get some nicely painterly moments, like a ballet studio where tutus hang in the rafters like indoor clouds.) Cohen and Hooper also beget it a point to shoot Redmayne like Josef von Sternberg filming Marlene Dietrich, and finding the androgynous actor’s best angles and lighting him like a screen queen of yore.
Also Read: Toronto Parties: 11 Buzziest Invites of the 2015 FestivalRedmayne fully inhabits the character,and it’s engrossing to watch an actor going through his processes as part of the work; Einar himself must learn to navigate the world as a woman, and when we see him duplicating a lady’s subtle hand gestures, and learning how to walk in her shoes,it provides a glimpse into what must absorb been Redmayne’s own preparation for the role. For her part, Vikander adds smoke and shading to a character who could absorb easily veered into being just one thing, and at least just one thing at a time; she juggles pride and anguish,affection and disappointment, and longing and empathy (sensitivity to another's feelings as if they were one's own) with noteworthy skill.
For all its period setting and opulence, and “The Danish Girl” is less removed from our own era than you might think; the physical violence and medical ignorance that Lili faces over the course of her evolution remain in place today. And while this film should by no means be the last word on an under-explored subject in mainstream cinema,it makes an engrossing guidepost toward bolder stories in the future.
Source: thewrap.com