Lazy Film Critic Movie Reviews
TIFF Movie Review: The Danish Girl
The Danish Girl is a drama based on the true story of Lili Elbe, who was either the first or one of the first people to undergo a sex change surgery. The film is directed by Tom Hooper, director of The King's Speech and Les Miserables. The film stars Eddie Redmayne, fresh off his Theory of Everything oscar, and Alicia Vikander from Ex Machina. Despite the films basis off a true story, it's actually based on a book, which is more or less a fictional story.
When this movie comes out, I think I know what all the movie fans are going to be talking about, which is Eddie Redmayne. Due to his recent oscar win, it'll be easy to assume Redmayne gives the best performance in this movie. Now, while he's by no means bad in the movie, his performance wasn't the most memorable one. The real oscar nomination I see coming out of this movie is for Alicia Vikander. She had by far the most emotional, captivating, and well rounded performance of the film, and absolutely stole the show.
Another thing that was well done with The Danish Girl was the cinematography, this movie is amazingly filmed, with some absolutely stellar shots. The aesthetic of this movie is beautiful, with great landscape shots, and amazing shots of 1920s Denmark. That last part also goes hand in hand with the set design and costumes, which were perfect. If it weren't for the fact that everyone inexplicably has a British accent, it would feel as though I were in 1920s Denmark.
However, unfortunatley, The Danish Girl suffers from a problem last years Foxcatcher suffered from, and something I think a lot of these "oscar bait" movies suffer from. The writing and pacing in these movies, and in the end the actual entertainment of the film is given a back seat to putting an actor in a role for them to be nominated for an oscar. I said it in my review for Foxcatcher, and I'll say it again, it's not a difficult task to get me entertained, I find almost anything entertaining. But the Danish Girl wasn't entertaining, so I didn't really enjoy the movie as a whole.
Final Rating
The Danish Girl has all the makings of a top notch film. The acting is really good, the cinematography is fantastic, and is has great set design. However, the film fails due to a lackluster story, poorly written characters, and quite frankly I feel the need to point out that this film would have been a lot more effective in what it's trying to do if Lili was played by a woman. As for my recommendation, the movie Creed comes out on the same day as The Danish Girl, and Creed is probably much more worth seeing.
The Danish Girl has all the makings of a top notch film. The acting is really good, the cinematography is fantastic, and is has great set design. However, the film fails due to a lackluster story, poorly written characters, and quite frankly I feel the need to point out that this film would have been a lot more effective in what it's trying to do if Lili was played by a woman. As for my recommendation, the movie Creed comes out on the same day as The Danish Girl, and Creed is probably much more worth seeing.
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