The Danish Girl 2015

Ok, let's begin from the easy part: Alicia Vikander as Gerda is the real main character in this movie, she's an amazing actress and her performance is really really good. And even though I really appreciate her performance, I think that point of view contributed to cheapen the movie's message.
Eddie Redmayme, well, I'm quite puzzled, because I loved him on "The Theory of Everything" and on "The Pillars of Earth" but here.. I was positive he would perform this character without falling into an offensive representation of transgender woman, I really hoped it, but at the end overcome clichés, stereotypes on "transvestites of 30s", on femininity, and women. I found it offensive because it's like the representation of a representation of what a man sees about women's way of move, act and think.
I really am disappointed by this movie because I find it dangerous: it does can be misunderstood and manipulated. I would have liked a better representation of context, because that would explain much: to society on 30s women's role was to procreate, to love a man and get married, to be quite shallow; this woman stuck inside a man's body tries to get accepted as woman, adapting to the common vision of that role, but eventually stops being herself, changes her way to move (copying other women), doing what she loves, and loving her wife instead of "bring outside" her true self.
On this movie gender identity and sexuality are mixed up and messed up...! No words! Shame! Shame! Shame!
Contextualization helps understanding and empathizing how confusing should have been being a transgender person those years, with no information, or scientific studies, and no psychological support on that path. The true feelings, and the story, are displayed by little and minimal clues and lines (and unaware people can miss them). Many elements and inattentions switched a prospective good movie to a dangerous message, which can be used by anti-LGBTQ+, transophobes, and populists, because the message passed can be that Einar was a man with some psicological issues and dissociative disorder (because starting a new life of course is talking on 3° person, getting rid of every passion, act litterally different, and switch your sexual orientation, is it?) who had this whim to fight for change his genitalia and died.
A woman is not a vagina, and a woman is not "less woman" if she is bisexual or lesbian, and being a transgender person doesn't mean that every problem is solved with an operation, there is an important and huge path made of self-acceptance, analysis, support, and operations (for those who decide to get it) is just the last step (and actually not really the last). Simplicism isn't always good, sensitive issues can't being tackled like this, expecially during periods in which it is still necessary educating people to awareness and respect. Making a movie in a superficial and approximate way "because this is the right time, it's the fashion" it's dangerous.
Really, the only reason for watching this movie is having the complete portrait of it, understanding critics and create a debate. And Alicia Vikander, I really love her acting, and she is beautiful; Gerda is a strong, independent woman, who loved her husband for who he really was and not for his body, and still continues - despite the difficulties to accept it - when he comes out as a transgender woman.
You love someone for who she is, not for her gender.

I loved this film, I thought it was so so beautiful and delicate but I felt the need to research reviews from transgender people because only they can truly say if the way Lili's story is depicted in this is respectful or not. The reviews were mixed, but most of them seemed to agree the time its set on justifies some of the mistakes in representing the transgender experience. Most also said the movie was based more off of the novel than Lili's actual diaries and that the novel itself already fictionalized some of the actual facts of Lili's life. Still, as loosely based as this might be on the real story of Lili Elbe's life it was still such an interesting watch, painful at times too, to think how hard it must have been before - and now, still - for transgender people to deal with how uncomfortable the bodies they were born in make them. At least now, they know what is going on, I don't think before they even had a name for what they were feeling.

Acting wise, I thought Redmayne and Vikander did a wonderful job, even if some of Redmayne's scenes seem to be bordering on caricatural. Technical wise, this film is beautiful, the colour scheme is so calming, the framing is so pretty some shots look like paintings themselves.

9/10

It has left me with a bittersweet taste, since for every point in favor, I found one against.

Let's go in order. First of all, I must applaud the non-verbal communication of the actors. Thanks to them, to the liveliness of the dramatization, they have managed to squeeze out every last feeling hidden in the script.

On the other hand, the mise-en-scène is magnificent: the clothes, the hairstyles, the sets, the scenery. It looked like a living painting.

Now some negative aspects. First of all, the script is a bit bland. Some conversations were a bit stilted and many times Hans (Matthias Schoenaert) doesn't fit in the scene (in Spanish it is funnier because "he doesn't fit" is said "no pinta nada", which means literally "he doesn't paint anything"). However, as I said before, the actors rose to the occasion.

On the other hand, being a film about painters, it is ironic that the blur was abused. Not that I'm against telephoto lenses. In fact, in some aspects, the scenes were artistically enhanced by the use of this technique, as for example, when Einar (Eddie Redmayne) begins to explore his body or when, through a short shot, we are shown how he tries to conceal one of his internal struggles. Bravo! Now, as I said above, it is ironic that, being a film in which the characters are painters, this technique is abused. I say this because painters, like cameramen, have to cut in a rectangle that part of reality that deserves to be immortalized, however, watching the film, instead of feeling like when I saw "Barry Lyndon", I felt myopic, and I had my glasses on. As in the previous point, it has managed to counteract, but in this case with the magnificent mise-en-scène.

All in all, the balance, in my opinion, analyzing the pros and cons, is balanced. And this is a pity, since it was a subject that offered many possibilities, especially at that time.

Nice try Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hooper. I know for a fact that the two of you wanted a second Oscar so badly, so you made this movie, but this isn't fooling anyone.

Oscar bait movies like this really makes my skin crawl, because this movie literally ticks off ways of getting that Oscar and it's quite shocking how noticeable it is here. I really liked 'The King's Speech' and I know it's not for everyone, but I thought it was a great movie and I couldn't wait to watch Tom Hooper's next film. Oh Hooper, what happened? I didn't care for 'Les Misérables' and I sure didn't care for this movie. The Danish Girl sadly fails to deliver and everything feels so force. The emotions, the art, and the story itself falls completely flat.

What the hell happened to Tom Hooper? After he won that Oscar he really lost his touch. There's hidden greatness in this movie and Hooper could have easily taken a different path to make this movie great, but he doesn't do that here, but he instead plays it safe and makes everything feels so force with emotions that there's actually no emotional attachment. There were some well directed scenes in this movie and it is well shot, but I felt like the movie was missing something and that's me actually caring about whats going on. The movie itself wants me to care about whats going on with the characters, but the only one I really cared about or felt bad about is Alicia Vikander character.

Now I've got nothing against Eddie Redmayne as I think he's a talented guy, but he seriously needs to pick better roles in the future. He was absolutely awful in 'Jupiter Ascending' and he sure wasn't good here. He's performance in this movie is what I call by the books Oscar bait. The emotions were there but I just didn't feel it and how the execution could have been better. A role like this is not a easy challenge and this must have been tough for Eddie, I mean in recent interviews, he has said that the role has personally changed his way of seeing things with genders and transgender people. He took a risk but it sadly didn't come together as promised. I swear, if Eddie Redmayne gets a second Oscar for this movie, I will be pissed.

Alicia Vikander was hands down the stand out of this movie. As I said before, I cared for her more than Redmayne character and that's saying a lot. Shes been not-stop impressing me this year and I can't wait to see more of her in future movies. She was brilliant in this movie as I really felt her struggle and her dealing to whats going on in her life is truly heartbreaking. She was without a doubt the best part of this movie and she did an magnificent performance.

The cinematography was good, the style of the movie was neat, the score was pretty solid, and that's really it.

Overall rating: 'The Danish Girl' wasn't a bad movie, but it's not great neither. This movies purpose of existing is just to win awards and nothing else.