Chirpy and vibrant atmosphere of the bohemian life that transitions into a meaningful evolution of personal identity and sacrifices of unconditional love.

Rating: 8/10 (16 April 2020)

Einar (Eddie Redmayne) is a sensitive, hopeful, submissive painter that lives the unconvential bohemian lifestyle with his wife Gerda (Alicia Vikander). We recognize immediately in the first scenes of the movie the personalities of each protagonist and how they complement. Gerda, the choleric, flirtatious, domineering, fickle wife is struggling to make an impact in the painting scene of 1920s Denmark. They are both creative and free in an atmosphere where emotions are clearly a critical aspect of their work; Einar starts to question his own identity when he participates in cross-dressing modeling and recognizes new sensations that excite him profusely.
In the initial stages of his transformation the viewer might intuit that this is simply one of the whims of the bohemian lifestyle, but as Einar starts to discover his emotions and identity the viewer starts to understand the complexity of his situation. It is not simply what demeanor, expressions, persona, image Einar decides to show to world, but his issue becomes multi-faceted as he decides to understand at a deeper level what he wants from life, how he wants to exist.
Einar's entire transformation puts Gerda's love and acceptance to the test. It is as if her frolicking nature got a bittersweet turn of events and Gerda had to endure the turbulent process that Lili decided to undergo. It is an interesting turn of narrative where Hans starts to become interested in Gerda, having been his first experience where Einar explores the sexual and emotional affection of men, but I believe the story would have turned too gloomy and depressive for the viewer if we would not get a reward for all the sacrifice that Gerda had to make after following and accompanying Einar in transitioning to Lili. The movie succeeds in carrying an elaborate plot and finding a resolution that would display the importance of identity in the complex self-discovery of sexuality and image. It also poses difficult questions for the viewer in relation to the boundaries of acceptance, unconditional love, identity, and sexuality.