The Danish Girl (film)

The Danish Girl
File:The Danish Girl (film) poster.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Tom Hooper
Produced by	Tim Bevan Eric Fellner Anne Harrison Tom Hooper Gail Mutrux
Screenplay by	Lucinda Coxon
Based on	The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff
Starring	Eddie Redmayne Alicia Vikander Matthias Schoenaerts Ben Whishaw Sebastian Koch Amber Heard
Music by	Alexandre Desplat
Cinematography	Danny Cohen
Edited by	Melanie Ann Oliver
Production companies	Working Title Pretty Pictures Revision Pictures Senator Global Productions
Distributed by	Focus Features Universal Pictures International
Release dates	5 September 2015 (2015-09-05) (Venice) 27 November 2015 (2015-11-27) (United States) 1 January 2016 (2016-01-01) (United Kingdom)
Running time	119 minutes
Country	United Kingdom United States
Language	English
Budget	$15 million
Box office	$14.6 million

The Danish Girl is a 2015 British pseudo-biographical drama film directed by Tom Hooper, based on the 2000 fictional novel of the same name by David Ebershoff and loosely inspired by the lives of Danish painters Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. The film stars Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe, one of the first known recipients of sex reassignment surgery, Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener, Matthias Schoenaerts as Hans Axgil, and Ben Whishaw as Henrik.

The film was screened in the main competition section of the 72nd Venice International Film Festival, and it was shown in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. The film was released in a limited release on 27 November 2015 by Focus Features in the United States. The film was released on 1 January 2016, in the United Kingdom by Universal Pictures International.

Plot

In mid-1920s Copenhagen, the portrait artist Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander) asks her husband, popular landscape artist Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne), to stand in for a female model who was late to come to their flat to pose for a painting she's working on. The act of Einar posing as a female figure unmasks what turns out to be a lifelong identification on the part of Einar as a female, named Lili Elbe. This sets off a progression, first tentative and then irreversible, of leaving behind the identity as Einar, which Lili has struggled to maintain all her life. This takes place as both Lili and Gerda relocate to Paris; Gerda's portraits of Lili in her feminine state attract the kind of attention from art dealers that her previous portraiture had not. It is there that Gerda tracks down art dealer Hans Axgil (Matthias Schoenaerts), a childhood friend of Einar (Hans had been the first boy that Einar had ever kissed). Hans and Gerda's mutual attraction causes problems as she is navigating her changing relationship to Lili, but his longtime friendship and affection for Lili lead him to play a supportive role for each.

Ultimately, Lili undergoes one of the very first instances of male to female sex reassignment surgery with the help of Kurt Warnekros (Sebastian Koch), a two-part procedure that first removes Lili's external genitalia and then, after a period of recovery, fashions a vagina. Lili's eagerness to shed the vestiges of her male anatomy leads her to rush the sequence of procedures, and she eventually dies of complications from the surgery. The movie ends with Gerda and Hans back in Denmark; a scarf that Lili had worn, and had given to Gerda before her second operation, is taken by the wind.

Cast

• Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe / Einar Wegener
• Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener
• Matthias Schoenaerts as Hans Axgil
• Ben Whishaw as Henrik
• Amber Heard as Ulla
• Sebastian Koch as Dr. Warnekros
• Emerald Fennell as Elsa
• Adrian Schiller as Rasmussen
• Henry Pettigrew as Niels

Production

Development

Screenwriter Lucinda Coxon worked on the screenplay for a decade before it was produced. She told Creative Screenwriting, "I started in 2004 and within a couple of years we had a script we were happy to send out. We were terribly excited and I was fantastically naïve, because when you fall in love with a project, you assume that everyone else will be in love with it as well. The actors were very much in love with it. Several well-known actresses wanted to play Gerda, but the subject matter made it quite difficult to find someone to play Lili. We scheduled various directors and with each director came a new draft."

In September 2009, Tomas Alfredson revealed to Variety that production on the project would precede that of his upcoming Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy adaptation. He added, "We have been in talks for close to a year, and we are soon going into production". In December 2009, Swedish newspapers reported that Alfredson was no longer attached to direct The Danish Girl and would begin work on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy next. Alfredson said he regretted that reports of him working on The Danish Girl spread before the deal was finalised. He also said that he still wanted to make the film and might return to the project.

On 12 January 2010, Swedish director Lasse Hallström told Swedish media that he had been assigned to replace Alfredson as director.

Casting

Charlize Theron was originally slated to play the role of Gerda Wegener but, after leaving the project, was replaced by Gwyneth Paltrow. Paltrow then left the project due to location changes. Uma Thurman was also a rumoured replacement. In September 2010, Marion Cotillard was rumored to be the lead candidate for the role of Gerda Wegener.

On 11 June 2010, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the film had received €1.2 million ($1.5 million) in subsidy financing from Germany's NRW Film Board. The conditions of the deal include the planned 19-day shoot in Germany. In February 2011, Screen Daily reported that the film would begin shooting in July of the same year and that Rachel Weisz would play Wegener. In May it was revealed that both Weisz and Hallström had left the project.

On 28 April 2014, it was announced that Tom Hooper would direct the film with Eddie Redmayne as the lead. On 19 June 2014, Alicia Vikander was announced in the cast. On 8 January 2015, Matthias Schoenaerts joined the cast.

Filming

Filming was projected to commence in spring 2010 in Berlin. Coxon revealed to Creative Screenwriting that when filming finally begun with Tom Hopper he actually filmed an older version of the script. "We had probably gone through twenty drafts before landing Tom Hooper. In fact, the one we shot was actually an early revised draft that Tom had read back in 2008. I did a fairly large rewrite for Tom, but in the end, we used a version with little revision from the original."

Filming began in February 2015, where Redmayne was spotted on set. Filming also took place at Nyhavn, where the iconic waterfront was transformed to look like Copenhagen in the 1930s. On 31 March 2015, Redmayne was spotted filming a fight scene. Sets for the Danish and Paris flats were built in the Elstree Studios in London and additional shooting took place in Copenhagen and Brussels. Production on the film concluded on 12 April 2015. Filming took place for a total of 44 days for the 186 scenes in four countries.

Post-production

Post-production ended in September 2015. Post-production according to composer, Alexandre Desplat was very fast, with the film being cut as Desplat was writing the score, which was recorded only a week prior to the film's premiere at the Venice Film Festival. In an interview with MTV International, Alicia Vikander revealed that two scenes featuring Amber Heard dancing were cut from the film, as well as stating the first cut for the film was over 2 hours.

Release

On 4 March 2015, Focus Features set the film for a limited release on 27 November 2015. The film had its world premiere at the 72nd Venice Film Festival on 5 September 2015. The film was released on 1 January 2016, in the United Kingdom.

Marketing

The first image of Redmayne as Lili Elbe was revealed on 26 February 2015. A pair of posters of Redmayne and Vikander were then released in August, On 1 September 2015, the first trailer was released. on 19 November 2015, The first clip from the film was released.

Reception

Box office

As of 3 January 2016, The Danish Girl has grossed $7,6 million in North America and $7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $14,6 million, against a budget of $15 million.

The film had a limited release in the United States and Canada across four theaters in New York and Los Angeles on November 27, 2015 before expanding theaters in December. The film earned $185,000 in its opening weekend, averaging $46,250, which is the sixth-best opening weekend per theater average of 2015. The opening weekend’s audience was 58% female, and 67% were over 40.

Critical response

The Danish Girl has received generally positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 72%, based on 113 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The consensus reads "The Danish Girl serves as another showcase for Eddie Redmayne's talent – and poignantly explores thought-provoking themes with a beautifully filmed biopic drama". On Metacritic the film has a score of 66 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

The film received some criticism for the casting of a cisgender man to play a trans woman. It has also been criticised for being written similarly to forced feminization erotica, obscuring the actual story of a historical trans person and for being based on a fictional book that doesn't tell the true story of Einar and Gerda Wegener. Topics including Gerda's sexuality, which is evidenced by the subjects in her erotic drawings, and the disintegration of Gerda and Lili's relationship after their annulment are omitted in both the novel and the film. Gerda Wegener's famous Lesbian Erotica paintings are never mentioned in the film, nor the fact that she wasn't around during Lili's last operation and death, but was living in Italy with her second husband, Fernando Porta.

An important factor surrounding Lili's death was left out from the movie: she died from organ rejection due to a uterus transplant in 1931, at the age of 48, but in the film she dies after the sex reassignment surgery. Despite many inaccuracies, the film is being marketed as a "true story" and "a true love story".

Ban

The film has been banned in Qatar on grounds of moral depravity , and also in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait.

Accolades

Main article: List of accolades received by The Danish Girl (film)

See also

• List of transgender characters in film and television
• List of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender-related films of 2015

External links

• The Danish Girl at IMDb
• The Danish Girl at Box Office Mojo
• The Danish Girl at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Danish Girl at Metacritic
• The Danish Girl at History vs. Hollywood