Saturday, January 30, 2016

The Danish Girl

A cool Saturday afternoon in the city saw a full cinema of grown ups to see this little movie.  It is a biographical drama based on a fictional novel published in 2000, that is then based on a book from 1933.  We meet young Danish painting husband and wife Gerda Wegener and Einer Wegener in the 1920s.   When she asks her husband to help her by posing in stockings and shoes to help complete a painting, Gerda helps him to release his female self Lily.  Initially amused by this transformation, the relationship becomes strained as Lily wants to leave Einer behind.

Identifying as Lily Elbe, she becomes the first transexual to undergo gender reassignment surgery in the 1930s and it is a story that you wonder if it could have been told so well twenty or even ten years ago.  Both Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander  are stunning in their roles and the costumes and hair are stunning, as are the simple chipped painted rooms with gorgeous grey bed linens.  4/5

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