Another Oscar Bait Film That Falls Short

Rating: 5/10 (6 January 2016)

2015 has been a relatively letdown of a year for film. Sure, you have the obvious masterpieces and returns to form for several huge franchises, but I feel like most of the films we expected to be Oscar contenders fell short of where our expectations hoped they would reach. That is yet again the case with The Danish Girl. Coming from the director of Les Miserables a few years back, The Danish Girl is loosely based on the life of one of the first people to have a sex transformation in early 20th century Denmark.
Eddie Redmayne plays Einar/Lili, who begins to feel comfortable in woman's clothing after his wife, Gerda, played by Alicia Vikander, asked him to pose for one of her paintings. Both Redmayne and Vikander give great performances, with the latter probably outshining the raining Oscar winner himself, but the film around them is just okay. With those great performances, you would think you feel very connected to their characters, but I never did. Their chemistry feels real and the conflicts that arise are most definitely real, but the solutions that the script calls for all feel unimaginative and uninspired.
Sometimes you can feel Tom Hooper's direction and Lucinda Coxon's script attempt to outshine the performances too much. By that I mean, the dialogue and structure ends up feeling too cute or too clever for a subject matter that could and should be tackled in a far more meaningful manner. If anything, I'm sure this film will do good for the movement and awareness of trans-gender in general. One of the most jarring things that's only touched upon in The Danish Girl is the lack of understanding at all for trans-genders, who were outed as insane during this time, and that was under 100 years ago.
The Danish Girl had promise but it only delivered on a few fronts, that being the extraordinary performance from Vikander and also Redmayne, while also creating a beautifully shot landscape of 20th century Europe. But the film itself had no regard for subtly in the big moments and profoundness in its quiet moments.
+Vikander is Oscar worthy
+Redmayne once again proves he deserves the hype
+Looks gorgeous
-Unimaginative writing
-Style over substance
5.7/10