The closer that each of my reviews is to awards season, the more unconventional they become. For the past four or five years, I’ve tried to see absolutely everything I can. If a movie gets nominated in one of the big six awards, I will see it regardless of how I feel about it. Sometimes this can be a painful experience, but it’s part of what I’m trying to do. So before I get into my review of The Danish Girl, I want to talk about the Best Actor Academy Award nomination category. In a year where the male lead performances have been far below the caliber that they have been in recent years, the battle for Best Actor comes down to two people. These include Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything, My Week With Marilyn) for this movie and Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant. When Matt Damon (The Martian) or Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs) are the next guys in line behind these two, you know it’s a two-dog race. I am a massive fan of both Damon and Fassbender, but they each have at least three movies in their filmography in which they delivered better performances than the ones they gave this year.

When asked earlier this year, the overwhelming consensus was that Eddie Redmayne would win this year’s top acting prize. On December 22nd, either actor has a chance to win. The first factor is that while Redmayne crushed his performance in The Danish Girl, the movie itself hasn’t done well. On the other hand, the Revenant is gaining traction at all the right times. While the film has yet to be viewed by the general public, I feel like Leo both need to be great, but not necessarily perfect for DiCaprio to gain the prize finally.

Now I am not at all a believer in lifetime achievement awards. The best performance should win. And while Redmayne was terrific, I felt like he did live a little wiggle room. Also, the fact that Redmayne did win last year might sway a couple of voters to pick DiCaprio. The final little nugget in the Redmayne vs. DiCaprio battle is that Alejandro González Iñárritu directed The Revenant and last year’s Birdman, where many people felt his lead actor (Michael Keaton) finished second in Best Actor Oscar voting to, yes, Eddie Redmayne. Will it be enough? We aren’t going to know the answer to that for another two months. I cheered hard for Redmayne to win last year. In a year that had some fantastic lead actor performances, I felt it would have been a tragedy if Keaton had one for, as I’ve said many times, basically playing himself. Ironically, my feelings are not as strong this year (they are extremely strong in the Best Actress category) as they were last year. I want DiCaprio to win, but I have yet even to see his movie. Right now, I believe the hype. And it’s not like Redmayne was anything less than extraordinary. He was fabulous. It’s going to come down to these two guys, and since DiCaprio is my favorite actor in the world, I’m going to pull for him.

The story is excellent because it’s true and feels genuine. However, that’s not enough to make it more exciting, which goes back to my first point that if the premise of this movie interests you, you’ll like the movie. If it doesn’t, you probably won’t. Think of a film with a great story that is inspiring and true, beautifully shot, a wide-ranging score, and one that has tremendous acting but still leaves you emotionally unaffected. That is The Danish Girl in a nutshell. Redmayne portrays real-life artist Einar Wegener who was the first known person to undergo sexual reassignment surgery. The setting for the movie is 1920s Denmark. Einar is a promising young painter who has already affirmed himself in the Copenhagen art community. Einar is married to Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander – Ex Machina, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.), an artist, albeit a less successful, who seems committed to doing conventional portraits. The two meet at a party. Einar has a way about him that charms the ladies, and Gerda is won over instantly.

One day Gerda asks Einar to put on some women’s clothing while attempting to finish a portrait. Einar initially resists, but as soon as he pulls up the hose around his calves, he conveys to the entire audience in less than a minute that the life he had been living was a lie, unbeknownst even to him. Before this, Einar and Gerda were the urbane couple and the fancy of their friends. However, when Einar begins wearing Gerda’s undergarments to bed and taking the persona of Lili, Gerda becomes concerned.

The movie then explores Einar/Lili’s emotional transformation as she begins dressing like a woman, wearing makeup, and addressing herself as Lili in public settings. This all further sets up her potential physical transformations as well. I won’t go in-depth here because herein lies the movie. However, I will say that Vikander met Redmayne step for step with her performance. It was a little bizarre to watch her reactions to the changes going on with her husband because the whole idea of sexual reassignment (transgender is another term that perhaps could be used here, but the term transgender is a very vague term even today because there is no actual agreement on what it means). This was such a foreign idea in itself, and then to couple it with the fact that it is your husband who is going through this, and I am amazed by how closely she stood by as a huge component of the love of her life changed into his authentic self. It was a very unselfish way of dealing with a life-altering blow that would be hard enough to accept in 2015 when sexual reassignment is a hot topic, and sexual reassignment surgery has successfully been performed than it was in 1920. People always talk about how falling in love with your best friend is the most incredible feeling in the world. But we know that sometimes, this does not last and can lead to both parties hating one another. Well, what happens when you fall in love with your best friend, marry him, and then he no longer loves you in the same way. He still loves you as a best friend, but his truest self is coming out, and this most authentic self doesn’t involve having you as a life partner anymore. This has got to feel like a punch in the gut. But what Gerda was able to do was not place blame. She was saddened for sure and wanted to understand when there was little understanding, but she never got mad at or blamed Einar/Lili for her newfound life. It’s a credit to her as well as to Vikander, who made this believable.

I am glad that I saw this movie. I thought it would be a top 10 film of 2015, and that will not happen. It will likely finish in the 15-25 range, putting it in the top third to top half of all of the movies I will have seen over the year. Part of that has to do with 2015 being an incredible year for film, and part of that has to do with that significant missing aspect of the movie that Hooper failed to capitalize on. How could you have this tremendous screenplay involving such a novel change in our society, excellent lead and supporting actors and actresses to play these real-life people, one of the best scores of the year, and some of the best imagery you’ll see on screen in 2015 and still be left with a movie in which you feel very detached? The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the director. I think other critics have this major criticism too, which is why the aggregate score on Rotten Tomatoes is right around 70%

There are plenty of people who will see all the movies nominated for Best Picture and all of the films nominated for Best Lead Actor and Best Lead Actress. The Danish Girl will fall into the Best Lead Actor category, so those people should check it out. It does not need its viewing to be on the big screen. Save those viewings for movies like Carol, Brooklyn, Spotlight, or The Revenant. Check out The Danish Girl at home.

Plot 9.5/10
Character Development 10/10 (Redmayne’s gradual development and growth into Einar was nothing short of masterful)
Character Chemistry 8.5/10 (there was something that felt a little off, or a little awkward, at times between Einar and Gerda)
Acting 9.5/10 (the performances were great)
Screenplay 9/10
Directing 7.5/10 (Hooper didn’t quite capture us in the fashion that he did with The King’s Speech)
Cinematography 10/10 (beautifully shot)
Sound 10/10 (another top-five score of the year)
Hook and Reel 7.5/10 (not going to lie…it was slow at times…if this isn’t a movie that you wanted to see ahead of time, I can’t see much of a scenario where you would really like it…however, if it was a movie that you were interested in, you will be happy with the product)
Universal Relevance 10/10 (Einar Wegener changed the world as we know it)
91.5%

Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie

• Boys Don’t Cry
• Carol
• Frida
• The Theory of Everything
• Ex Machina