David Ebershoff wrote The Danish Girl novel in 2000, and it is about the life of his idea of the first person to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Her name was Lili Elbe. Most of what was written about Elbe’s life was made up, as were the other characters in the book since Ebershoff could only imagine what life was like for Lili and her American wife, Greta Waud. However, the real wife was Gerda Wegener and she was Danish, not American.
So let’s talk a bit about this “inspired” book of a true story that the 2015 movie The Danish Girl is based on. We are introduced to Greta Wegener and her portrait painting career in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is married to Einar Wegener, a very well-known landscape painter, while her’s not. She is asked to paint a portrait of a famous opera singer, who is exceptionally busy, so Greta enlists her husband’s help, convincing him to put on the singer’s dress…and he is very pretty, with Greta calling him Lili, which he obviously loves it. Einar, then, dresses as Lili and goes out in public, with Greta supporting his choice and starting to paint Lili, gaining attention for her art. Lili gets involved with Henrik, a male painter, but doesn’t want to let him know that she is really a man, so the relationship comes to an end.
Moving to Paris, Greta and Einar (Lili) befriend Hans, a childhood friend of Einar, and with his help, Greta becomes very successful. At this point, Einar has stopped painting and spends his time visiting peep shows, watching women strip, so he can learn to move more like a woman. But he has become more and more depressed, wanting to be Lili. Becoming suicidal, Greta and her brother Carlisle help by taking Einar to various doctors, who think an X-Ray can take the gay out of him, or commit if for schizophrenia, or give him a lobotomy. Finally Professor Bolk, who have developed a surgery to change a man into a woman, removes Einar’s male parts and replaces them with female ones. Biologically, Einar already had a pair of ovaries, so he was part female already. The surgeries were successful, and he goes back to Denmark with Greta, divorced by still living with one another, Greta and the now Lili Elbe (after the river).
Lili now reunites with Henrik and wants to marry; when he does propose, they want to move to American, but Lili wants to have one final surgery…a transplanted uterus so she may have children. Greta refuses to help and returns with her brother to Dresden. She also decides to go with Hans to New York leaving her old life behind. Lili decides to have the final operation, but an infection develops and it’s serious. Lili does not know that it is fatal. The book ends with Lili, accompanied by Carlisle, pushing her wheelchair outdoors for one last walk. We are to assume that Lili will die. The book deals with the six-years Einar/Lili and Greta are going through right up to the surgery and psychological changes as Einar becomes Lili. Guessing, since the author does not really know for certain, how Einar/Lili and Greta’s relationship evolves, between desire and necessity, and how they adapt to their love for one another. Plus, the real story is about Einar and Lili and not the relationship between them and Greta.
The movie is an intermediate translation of the inspired book of the true story of Danish painters, Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. Also used in the adaptation was Lili’s diaries written in the book Man into Woman, edited by Niels Hoyer. Directed by Tom Hooper, it was adapted by Lucinda Coxon and starred Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe, Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, Matthias Schoenaerts as Hans Axgil, and Ben Whishaw as Henrik.
The film’s story starts in Copenhagen in the mid-1920s, with Gerda Wagener asking her husband, well-known landscape painter Einar Wegener to help her with posing for portrait she is painting as her model. The posing as a female brings to life Einar’s identification as a woman, who is named Lili Elbe. Things start, tentatively and then irreversibly, with leaving behind the Einar, which she has struggle to be her entire life. It all happens with the relocation to Paris from Denmark. The portraits of Lili as a female attracts attention, while Gerda finds an old high school classmate of Einar’s, Hans Axgil, who is a successful art dealer. Gerda and Hans discover that they have feelings for one another, but Hans’ friendship with Lili causes him to be reluctant to take the relationship further.
Einar continues to struggle with the identity and existence of Lili, and seeks help from psychologists with no concrete results. However, Lili and Gerda do meet a Dr. Kurt Warnekros, who tells them that he proposes a new and controversial solution to Lili’s problem: a two-part dangerous sex reassignment surgery that will involve the removal of the external genitalia and then form a vagina. Rushing the needed procedures, Lili eventually dies of complication from the surgery, and the film ends with Gerda and Hans in Denmark, while the card Lili had given to Gerda, is seen dancing in the wind. This ending is very different from the literature because the director decided that he wanted to leave an ambiguous feeling if there were to be a romantic relationship between Gerda and Hans rather than a friendship. What was important was the relationship between Lili and Gerda.
Most critics have raved about the acting of Alicia Vikander (for which she received the Academy Award and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress) and Eddie Redmayne (nominated again for Academy Award for Best Actor). I agree with Alicia’s award, her performance was excellent, but as far as Redmayne’s characterization of Lili/Einar, well, Jared Leto’s performance as a transgender in Dallas Buyer’s Club was much, much better. Just saying.
I liked the use of infertile cards to help with the exposition of location if nothing else. Great visual effects and cinematography, but the makeup was not the best. Redmayne's physical movements as Lili were just too exaggerated and stereotypical of the director’s interpretation of women. The set design and costumes appear to be authentic, but the storyline played for the sympathies of the audience and came across as too melodramatic for my tastes. The music was also used to emphasize those sympathies.
One must remember that this film was based MOSTLY on the fictional novel written by David Ebershoff which consisted of many inaccuracies of what is a true story; but if truth be told, I have to believe that Ebershoff was not trying to tell a true story, but what he thought was happening to Elbe’s life. The film starts in 1926; Lili was 44, Gerda was 40, they were married for 26 years: The film says they had been married for only 6 years, and Gerda lived in Paris during the 1910s as openly lesbian which was omitted in the novel and film, while there was no man named Hans in her life at all. Lili’s man in her life at her death was an art dealer Claude Lejeune. Henrik is pure fiction. Lastly, Lili was not the first transgender woman. Dora Richter was the first.
This was an interesting movie, which had its difficulties and inconsistencies. If you have not seen it, rent it and decide for yourself. GRADE: 3 of 5 crowns
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