Unfortunately,The Danish Girl Refers More To Gerda Rather Than Lili

Rating: 9/10 (26 November 2016)

Based on the fictional novel written by David Ebershoff and loosely inspired on the lives of Danish painters Einar and Gerda Wegener,The Danish Girl tells a story of their marriage as well as the groundbreaking journey of Gerda's husband Einar Wegener into becoming a transgender Lili Elbe during the 1920's in Denmark.It all started when Gerda asked her husband Einar to pose for her as a female model to do her portraits.What started as a game when Einar started wearing female clothing started to reawaken sudden change of feelings and transformation of sexuality from being male to female.It stars Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander as Einar/Lili and Gerda respectively in a film directed by Tom Hooper.Amanda Beard co- stars as the couple's close female friend.
No question that Alicia Vikander deserved winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in last year's Academy Awards.Her willingness to take chances in her role as Gerda has somehow made it a great film.Unfortunately,her performance has somewhat took the film into another direction.Instead of the viewers getting to know more of what made Einar become a transgender,they are treated instead of Gerda's undying love for her husband amidst the changes that have gone through him and her full acceptance for it.The viewers saw more in her character's joy and suffering being the husband of Einar/Lili.
Well,that is not to take away anything from Eddie Redmayne at all.After watching him from Theory Of Everything wherein he won the Oscar for his role as Stephen Hawking,he definitely did extremely well once again in the dual roles of Einar and the complex Lili where he was definitely credible transgender.He was excellent in terms of its role's complexity.It was just too bad that there was simply a lack of explanation in his role as Lili. I myself would not be fully satisfied that simply wearing female clothing and being dressed up as a woman would make Einar feel extremely comfortable with it and would not want to dress as man once again.Besides,I felt that Einar and Gerda' marriage was picture perfect from their relationship together and so was their sex life.Too bad the viewers were simply asked to accept that this sudden change with little explanation in Einar's psychological make- up as well as his personality too.Even his childhood fantasies related by Hans Axgil wasn't enough.It was evident that his character isn't fully developed.
In the end,The Danish Girl became Gerda's film about unrequited love for a husband instead of Einar/Lili to become a landmark transgender film.I somewhat blame the writers for it and Vikander's excellent performance.