The Danish Girl is based on the true (if heavily revised and simplified) story of Lili Elbe, one of the first people ever to undergo sex reassignment surgery, but while the timing of this is right — transgender issues are surely the next equality frontier — the film itself somehow isn’t. It’s OK. It’s probably passable, if you’ve got two hours to kill. But it’s repetitive, excessively polite and also, given the subject matter, surprisingly dull. It opens when Lili is still Einar, married to Gerda, and if the two ever came round for dinner you’d be mouthing over their heads: ‘Who invited them?’ And: ‘Oh boy, do you think they are ever going to leave?’
Directed by Tom Hooper, who gave us The King’s Speech, which was heavenly, then Les Misérables, which was 672 hours about a stolen bun, the film starts in 1920s Copenhagen, and, I have to say, it looks beautiful, with its painterly, soft blue interiors, white skies and gorgeous cobbled streets.
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