"The Danish Girl" *Non-Spoiler* Review

The Danish Girl is the fictitious love story inspired by the lives of Danish artists Lili Elbe (Eddie Redmayne) and Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander). The two leads are the stars of this film. Their characters have depth, carry emotional weight, and make you feel for them throughout the movie. Eddie Redmanye (Theory of Everything) delivers yet another stellar performance as Lili. He starts out the film known as Einar, the husband of Gerda. Throughout the film you watch him struggle with the fact that he is woman stuck inside a man’s body. Obviously this is the main focus of The Danish Girl. The big conflict of the film is with his wife. Alicia Vikander gives an equally magnificent performance as well and may have well stolen the show from her counterpart. The chemistry the two leads is a delight to watch and keep your eyes on the screen every time the two are on it at the same time. As Lili struggles do understand what she is going through, Gerda equally struggles to watch lose her husband slowly every day. When Redmayne and Vikander are not on the screen, which is when The Danish Girl runs into its problems. The film is only 2 hours long but moves at such a pace that it seems a lot longer than that. Outside of the main struggle of the two main characters, the rest of the movie is quite boring. There is nothing that really gets your attention and makes you sit up and demands your attention. The side characters are also very forgettable and not used to their own potential. Amber Heard (Ulla) plays Gerda’s and Lili’s good friend and is absolutely wonderful in the first scene you see her in but is rarely used at all afterwards and becomes an afterthought throughout the rest of the film.

Conclusion: The Danish Girl provides you with one best performances of the year from the two leads and hits perfectly on the emotional chord between them. Director Tom Hooper instantly has you caring about the two leads and the conflicts both are fighting within themselves and with each other. Unfortunately The Danish Girl suffers from forgettable secondary characters, too slow paced, and not the best story telling. It is a shame that The Danish Girl didn’t come out better due to how relevant it is given what is going on in the world today. You don’t have to run out and see this one.

SCORE:                 6.25/10 – AVERAGE