Going trans used to be really rough.
“The Danish Girl” is pretty standard Tom Hooper fare. Natural lighting mixed with strange angles and dialogue that seems almost ambient. It’s like if Malick had a kid that wanted to break free without any sense of clarity. Eddie Redmayne coasts through a rather standard performance, while Alicia Vikander carries most of the movie on her back. I get that Redmayne likes to transform for a role. That’s cool, people. I saw “Jupiter Ascending” and that TV movie he used to cheat Michael Keaton.
It’s just that what happens here that we didn’t see better in “The Christine Jorgensen Story”? If I’m supposed to call every actor brave for cross-dressing, then we all owe the Kids in the Hall and Monty Python a new degree of respect. “The Danish Girl” represents what I hate about these kinds of films. It wears the tragedy, triumph and lives of others like costume jewelry. Nothing new is added and I’m supposed to be impressed that it looked good on them. Boo to that and Boo to this film.
RELEASE DATE: 11/25/2015 (limited)
