The Danish Girl

Acceptance is defined as an idea that in human psychology is a person’s assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it, protest.  The Danish Girl isn’t about acceptance but involves an individual realizing who they truly are.  The Danish Girl, the latest film by director Tom Hooper is a film about a married couple in 1926 Copenhagen who are failed painters.  One of those painters is Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne), a successful landscape painter who has notoriety in town.  Einar’s wife Gerda (Alicia Vikander) has been much less successful in her artistic endeavors and lives in the shadow of her husband’s fame.  One fateful day Einar is asked to pose as a stand in for one of her female subjects.  This simple act awakens in Einar the knowledge that he is not at home in his own body as a male but should live life as a female named Lilly.

The Danish Girl is superb.  It is a triumph of the difficulties one human can face when they are not who they want to be and society says it’s a perversion to change it.  This film would be nothing without the partnership and chemistry of Vikander and Redmayne. Vikander comes across as madly in love with Einar.  She was once his student and you can tell that she drew inspiration from him and the beauty of his work.  I felt bad for Gerda as I felt she was being forced to let go of the man she fell in love with and love someone completely different.  The other side of that circumstance is that it is completely unfair for an individual to have to hide who they are and what they feel represents them best.  I believe Einar to be a victim of his time period and his circumstances and to say he doesn’t deserve the respect to follow his path of identification is wrong.

As a person with a disability I related strongly with Einar’s plight of being ostracized for looking or acting different.  Children and adults have challenges accepting someone vastly different from themselves.  It’s as if the world built an architype for how the average individual should look or sound and anyone who deviated from that concept was to be feared or ignored or abused.  I found it difficult to watch Einar be physically abused in a part just for wearing a different colored blazer.  The scene I love most in the film that counters all that hatred and dislike involves Einar frustratingly running into the costume department stripping naked and looking in the mirror.  This scene is impactful because at that moment he is learning precisely who he wants to become.

Tom Hooper’s direction in the film is fantastic because he knows that for this particular story to be a success the camera needs to just be an observer.  There are of course a variety of close up shots to detail how Einar is transforming into Lily or how Lily is making herself present inside Einar and those really aide in understanding Einar’s inner turmoil.

The only negative I found with this film is how long it takes the relationship between Gerda and Einar repair.  I found it painful that their relationship became entirely based on what Gerda wanted in her career.  Things seem to only change when she realizes just how important Lilly will be in both of their lives.  The revelation of why Lilly needs to exist doesn’t come at all once but piece by piece as the journey unfolds.  This story tactic is what saves the film from shouting “this is an important identity issue” and instead assuredly says “this individual deserves the life they want and to be respected as a human being.”

The Danish Girl didn’t change the way I view the idea of being transgender or transgender issues.  The film did however allow me to emotionally connect with the problem society has with differences across all spectrums of race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and gender identity.  The Danish Girl reminded me that the dialogue about such issues and the change that needs to occur in society starts with valuing those who face the problem and supporting their journey in life.  If that is what the film set out to achieve it succeeded in spades.