The Danish Girl

The performances are what sustains Tom Hooper's beautiful but buttoned-up The Danish Girl

A fictionalized account of transgender pioneer Lili Elbe, Tom Hooper’s delicate and decorous The Danish Girl is virtually sustained by the magnetism of its lead performance. As landscape painter Einar Wegener, Eddie Redmayne is stiffly formal – he even paints in a three-piece suit. But when Einar becomes Lili the film truly comes alive, as Redmayne transforms into pure coltish ingénue experiencing the exciting pangs of rebirth with trepidation and desire.

As Einar’s wife and Lili’s portraitist, Gerde Wegener, Alicia Vikander looks luminous but anchors the film with a much-needed earthiness. Still, the gauzy mood that Hooper wants to evoke ends up becoming more like a tether, robbing the story of much of its emotional impact and urgency for the sake of picturesque respectability. A little restraint is fine, but why do period pieces have to be saddled with the sheen of the “respectable”? Like Lili, The Danish Girl appears as fragile as fine lace, and it is often as beautiful. But it feels a bit too buttoned up for its own good, even as its lead takes it all off.