The Danish Girl
Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2016 8:40 am
Following his role as Hawking in The Theory of Everything Eddie Redmayne faces another challenging role in The Danish Girl where this time he attempts to cross gender in his portrayal as Einer Wegener/Lilli Elbe, the first man to undergo gender reassignment surgery back in the 1930's.
Well it was a sterling attempt, no doubt - but I'm not 100% sure he pulled it off and I think the highest praises must go (as they indeed did) to Alicia Vikanderfor her role as his long suffering wife Gerta Wegener. Her futile attempts to re-bottle the genie she had unleashed through her unthinking fun and games, as she gradually witnessed the transformation of her loving husband Einer into the fantasy woman Lille for real were heartbreaking to see.
It's important to remember this is not a biopic. It's based on a work of fiction that utilises real events and characters, but superimposes fictional dialogue and thoughts etc onto the existing framework on the known story. As such it works well and all said and done is a good couple of hours of film viewing, but I can't shake the feeling I might be damning it with faint praise here and that can't be a good sign. Somehow it justfailed to tick all the boxes it could have done and that's a shame.
Well it was a sterling attempt, no doubt - but I'm not 100% sure he pulled it off and I think the highest praises must go (as they indeed did) to Alicia Vikanderfor her role as his long suffering wife Gerta Wegener. Her futile attempts to re-bottle the genie she had unleashed through her unthinking fun and games, as she gradually witnessed the transformation of her loving husband Einer into the fantasy woman Lille for real were heartbreaking to see.
It's important to remember this is not a biopic. It's based on a work of fiction that utilises real events and characters, but superimposes fictional dialogue and thoughts etc onto the existing framework on the known story. As such it works well and all said and done is a good couple of hours of film viewing, but I can't shake the feeling I might be damning it with faint praise here and that can't be a good sign. Somehow it justfailed to tick all the boxes it could have done and that's a shame.