The Danish Girl (film)

Plot

In mid-1920s Copenhagen, portrait artist Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander) asks her husband, popular landscape artist Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne), to stand in for a female model who is late to come to their flat to pose for a painting she's working on.

The act of posing as a female figure unmasks Einar's lifelong identification as a woman, who named himself Lili Elbe. This sets off a progression, first tentative and then irreversible, of leaving behind the identity as Einar, which he has struggled to maintain all his life. This takes place as both Lili and Gerda relocate to Paris; Gerda's portraits of Lili in her feminine state attract serious attention from art dealers in a way that her previous portraiture had not. It is there that Gerda tracks down art dealer Hans Axgil (Matthias Schoenaerts), a childhood friend of Lili (whom Einar/Lili had kissed when they were young). Hans and Gerda's mutual attraction is a challenge, as Gerda is navigating her changing relationship to Einar/Lili; but Hans' long-time friendship with and affection for Einar/Lili cause him to be supportive of both Einer/Lili and Gerda.

As Einar's/Lili's continued existence presenting as male becomes too much to bear, she starts to seek help from psychologists, but none yields any result, and, in one instance, almost leads her into being committed to an asylum. Eventually, at Hans's recommendation, Einar/Lili and Gerda meet Dr. Kurt Warnekros (Sebastian Koch). Dr. Warnekros explains that he has met several people like her, who are physically male but identify as female, and proposes a new, innovative and controversial solution: male to female sex reassignment surgery. This would entail a two-part procedure that involves first removing Lili's external genitalia and then, after a period of recovery, fashioning a vagina. He warns them that it is a very dangerous operation that has never been attempted before, and Lili would be one of the first to undergo it. Lili immediately agrees and, soon after, travels to Germany to begin the surgery. Unfortunately, her eagerness to shed the vestiges of the male anatomy leads her to rush the sequence of procedures, and Lili eventually dies of complications from the surgery. The film ends with Gerda and Hans on a hilltop back in Denmark, in front of the five trees Lili had painted. The scarf that Lili had originally given Gerda, and that had subsequently been given back and forth several times, is carried away on the wind, dancing.

Development

Screenwriter Lucinda Coxon worked on the screenplay for a decade before it was produced. She told Creative Screenwriting:

I started in 2004 and within a couple of years we had a script we were happy to send out. We were terribly excited and I was fantastically naïve, because when you fall in love with a project, you assume that everyone else will be in love with it as well. The actors were very much in love with it. Several well-known actresses wanted to play Gerda, but the subject matter made it quite difficult to find someone to play Lili. We scheduled various directors and with each director came a new draft.

In September 2009, Tomas Alfredson revealed to Variety that production on the project would precede that of his upcoming Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy adaptation, adding: "We have been in talks for close to a year, and we are soon going into production". In December 2009, Swedish newspapers reported that Alfredson was no longer attached to direct The Danish Girl and would begin work on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy next. Alfredson said he regretted that reports of him working on The Danish Girl spread before the deal was finalized. He also said that he still wanted to make the film and might return to the project.

On 12 January 2010, Swedish director Lasse Hallström told Swedish media that he had been assigned to replace Alfredson as director.

Casting

In 2008, Nicole Kidman was originally attached to play Einar/Lili and would also produce the film through her company Blossom Films. Charlize Theron was originally slated to play the role of Gerda Wegener but, after leaving the project, was replaced by Gwyneth Paltrow. Paltrow then left the project due to location changes. Uma Thurman was also a rumoured replacement. In September 2010, Marion Cotillard was rumored to be the lead candidate for the role of Gerda Wegener.

On 11 June 2010, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the film had received €1.2 million ($1.5 million) in subsidy financing from Germany's NRW Film Board. The conditions of the deal include the planned 19-day shoot in Germany. In February 2011, Screen Daily reported that the film would begin shooting in July of the same year and that Rachel Weisz would play Wegener. In May, it was revealed that both Weisz and Hallström had left the project.

On 28 April 2014, it was announced that Tom Hooper would direct the film with Eddie Redmayne as the lead. On 19 June 2014, Alicia Vikander was announced in the cast. On 8 January 2015, Matthias Schoenaerts joined the cast.

Filming

Filming was projected to start in Spring 2010 in Berlin. Coxon revealed to Creative Screenwriting that, when filming finally began with Hooper, he actually filmed an older version of the script:

We had probably gone through 20 drafts before landing Tom Hooper. In fact, the one we shot was actually an early revised draft that Tom had read back in 2008. I did a fairly large rewrite for Tom, but in the end, we used a version with little revision from the original.

Filming began in February 2015, where Redmayne was spotted on set. Filming also took place at Nyhavn, where the iconic waterfront was transformed to look like Copenhagen in the 1930s. Sets for the Danish and Paris flats were built in the Elstree Studios in London and additional shooting took place in Copenhagen and Brussels. Production on the film concluded on 12 April 2015. Filming took 44 days for the 186 scenes in six countries.

Post-production

Post-production ended in September 2015. According to composer, Alexandre Desplat, post-production was very fast, with the film being cut as Desplat was writing the score, which was recorded only a week prior to the film's premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

Hooper revealed to Indiewire and After Ellen that the film's ending is different from the novel (in which Gerda and Hans stay together) and real life (Gerda and Lili were not together in Lili's final days), and he de-emphasized the importance of the Hans storyline because he did not want to feel that there was a love possibility for Gerda with Hans that could in any way rival Lili. He wanted it to be ambiguous whether it would turn into a love affair, rather than a friendship, because he saw Lili and Gerda as the loves of each other's lives. He took the script in that direction to protect the importance of their relationship.

In an interview with MTV International, Vikander revealed that two scenes featuring Amber Heard dancing were cut from the film, as well as stating the first cut for the film was over 2 hours.

Release

On 4 March 2015, Focus Features set the film for a limited release on 27 November 2015. The film had its world premiere at the 72nd Venice Film Festival on 5 September 2015. Universal Pictures handled distribution in other territories outside the U.S., with a release on 1 January 2016, in the United Kingdom.

Home media

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 1 March 2016 in the United States.

Marketing

The first image of Redmayne as Lili Elbe was revealed on 26 February 2015. A pair of posters of Redmayne and Vikander were then released in August, On 1 September 2015, the first trailer was released. on 19 November 2015, The first clip from the film was released.

Box office

The Danish Girl has grossed $11.1 million in North America and $53.1 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $64.2 million, against a budget of $15 million.

The film had a limited release in the United States and Canada across four cinemas in New York and Los Angeles on 27 November 2015 before expanding cinemas in December. The film earned $185,000 in its opening weekend, averaging $46,250, which is the sixth-best opening weekend per cinema average of 2015. The opening weekend’s audience was 58% female, and 67% were over 40.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 68% based on 214 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The consensus reads "The Danish Girl serves as another showcase for Eddie Redmayne's talent -- and poignantly explores thought-provoking themes with a beautifully filmed biopic drama". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 66 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Independent film website FilmDebate credited The Danish Girl as the 'most important film of 2015', stating that 'This is not only the best movie of the year, but it is the most important. The story and performances come together in the truest of ways to make a film that the whole world needs to see and get behind.'

The film's acting, particularly that of Redmayne and Vikander in the lead roles, received considerable acclaim, with Marie Asner of Phantom Tollbooth stating that "the acting is what makes this film" and Damien Straker of Impulse Gamer writing that "two commanding performances give it a gripping emotional weight that is very affecting". Redmayne's performance was described as "another sterling example of just how deeply he can immerse himself into a role" by Jim Schembri of 3AW, and as "revealing, heartbreaking and believable" by Linda Cook of Quad-City Times.

Kyle Buchanan, writing for Vulture, complained that it was part of a trend of "queer and trans films that are actually about straight people", while Paul Byrnes for The Sydney Morning Herald said it was "a lost opportunity" in which "the frocks are more convincing than the emotions." Casey Plett, a transgender writer, criticized the script in a conversation in The Walrus as "atrocious and boring", going on to say "It’s like someone got inspired by a Shakespeare tragedy, then combined the verbosity of R.L. Stine with the subtlety of Brendan Fraser."

Controversy

It has also been criticized for being written similarly to forced feminization erotica, obscuring the actual story of a historical trans person, and for being based on a fictional book that does not tell the true story of Lili and Gerda Wegener.

Oscar controversy

Alicia Vikander was awarded the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film, the film's only Oscar win out of the four nominations, a decision that the Academy was heavily criticized for as Vikander has about 1 hour of screen-time which is 50% of the film's run-time which qualifies her for a Best Actress Oscar. It was actually a decision made by the film's distributor, Focus Features, to campaign Vikander for the Oscar and all other prizes in the supporting actress category, in which many supportive wives have been nominated and even won. She was intentionally shortlisted for a supporting actress as she would have been competing against Brie Larson for her role in Room, which would have decreased her chances of winning while the supporting actress category had little competition.

Historical accuracy

Ban

The film has been banned in Qatar on grounds of moral depravity, and also in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, and Malaysia.