The Danish Girl, based on the true story of transsexual artist Einar Wegener, seems sure to secure Eddie Redmayne another Oscar nomination after last year’s win. He is obviously in favour at the academy, but I still am not convinced that he is the great actor that the awards and nominations seem to indicate. Sure, he was good as Stephen Hawking in the Theory of Everything, but he had made little impression on me prior to that, and his performance in the dire Jupiter Ascending was execrable.
In his latest film, he has been given an almost impossible task. He has to be convincing as both Einar, a man who has persuaded the stunning Alicia Vikander to marry him, and as Lili Elbe, the woman he wants to be. In truth he doesn’t really nail it in either part of the role, he comes across as totally bland in this largely lifeless film. He is not helped by a lumpen script and a pedestrian telling of Einar’s story that somehow managed to be both too superficial and too long.
It is not a total loss as Vikander is very good, and the look of the film is excellent. However, it is a pretty hard slog and the fabricated ending felt way too fake and too contrived even before I looked up the true story afterwards!
Rating: 4.5 out of 10