Lili's legacy deserved better than Redmayne's Oscar-baity pathos...

Rating: 7/10 (24 August 2019)

In a heartfelt interview related to his role in "Tootsie", Dustin Hoffman recalled that existential epiphany when he was trying for different ways to look convincing as a woman, he realized that the issue wasn't about how realistic he looked but how beautiful. He then realized how demanding was society toward women and he cried at the thought of many interesting women he missed just because he himself applied that pressure on them. The role allowed him to approach the beauty-burden of women and in that fragment of interview lays one truth that the whole "The Danish Girl" movie flirts with but never embraces.
I know Tom Hooper's film isn't about cross-dressing as much as it's about gender-identity so I'm not comparing the film to "Tootsie". However, there comes a moment when the pre-surgery Lili Elbe, played by Eddie Redmayne, enjoys the idea of being believable as a woman and does the best to hide whatever can betray the male assets and deep inside, I couldn't help but feel as though I was watching an actor giving his best shot as a woman, because the initial idea of a woman was to be beautiful, to look sweet and sensitive, to let an innocent chuckle, a few sobbing breaths slip, and Redmayne looked believable in these clichÃ©s situations, but that was all.
In a film where you have the wife Gerta, an independent painter and strong female character played by Alicia Vikander, it's rather frustrating to see that a transgender person, once she becomes a woman, abandons all her dreams and makes her best to fit in a female crowd, talking about the last fashion of Paris and giggling like a schoolgirl. In "Tootsie", being the beautiful woman was the means, in "The Danish Girl", it's the end. When Lili becomes a woman, I'm sorry if this comparison offends but I immediately thought of Mr. Garrison in "South Park" who, as soon as he became a woman, enjoyed talking with girls about girly things such as men and the 'curse', it was like joining a club. I know the film goes deeper than that and the real-life story of Lilu is an inspiration for many people who feel trapped in the wrong body, however, I'm blaming the treatment for making the gender identity something as superficial and predictable.
For some reason, the film was more effective when it started like a game and Edgar started enjoying the way his modelling inspired a believable lady, having that same Tootsie "epiphany", when the struggle to search his identity was within the framework of art, the film could deliver its message without being too forceful, and art was the perfect medium. Think about it, what is the purpose of art, it seeks beauty, goodness and truth, a certain truth as perceived by the artist. Lili starts as "beauty" and then she reveals what Lili feels like the best part of herself and then at the end, it turns out that Lili was the truth, the one she's been longing for, she's his, no, her reality. "The Danish Girl" starts as a wonderful movie about art and the way it can speak some deep truths about our own personas, only this time, the work of art serves the model's epiphany... it's the idea of being looked at as someone, and then be treated like that someone, and then become that someone, it's a fantastic journey between the realms of reality and art, highlighting the latter's universal language.
Tom Hooper had a fantastic material in the original novel written by David Ebershoff, but for some reason, he decided it to turn it into a sober and melancholic drama whose second act is obviously tailor-made to shine a light on an important issue, in other words, it played the Oscar bait thing with the dragging sequences and the sad piano theme. I enjoyed "The King's Speech" not because of the stuttering performance or because of its climax (it was only a speech after all) but because it told a terrific friendship story, one can argue that "The Danish Girl" is also a tale of love between a woman and her husband who becomes a woman, but Redmayne plays a frustratingly passive character whose efforts to be a woman are only highlighted through sad monologues, cries and sorry for the term, cross-dressing and impressions that are so artificial that they never show what it is to feel like a woman, only to look like one.
Redmayne is a good actor but he pushes the pathos button way too far to make for an enjoyable experience and I'm not sure people who belongs to the community like to be their lives seen as eternal reservoirs of sadness. Vikander pulls off a terrific performance but she's clearly the leading character and while the producers put her in the supporting character to win, we're forced to enjoy Redmayne's continual pathos, regretting these true-to-life moments where even when she looked like a man was playfully posing like a woman. The second act is just the typical biopic material chronicling the final years of Lili and although her life is an inspiration, I wished it inspired more than a fade and pale drama from a director who seems to love playing on the safe side. Lili's legacy deserved better than Redmayne's performance.