REVIEW: The Danish Girl (2016)

The Danish Girl was always going to be a well-meaning but ineffective work, a boring modern day Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner that will shock few and will look ridiculously tame and safe to future audiences (if indeed there is any). Directed by Tom Hooper, the man behind a tin eared, emotionless musical and a WWII film in which the crowds cheer the King’s ability to announce a coming mass slaughter, it was even going to feel a bit underwhelming. But it is a surprise just how cack-handed a film The Danish Girl ultimately is.

Eddie Redmayne chases acclaim as Einar Wegener, or Lili, a man who suddenly realizes that he is actually a woman trapped in a man’s body. Einar is happily married to Gerda (Alicia Vikander), and there are both painters. Einar stands in as a model for Gerda and starts to develop an affinity for women’s clothing. This leads to an implausible prank in which Einar attends a social gathering as ‘Lili’, his female cousin from the country. However, Einar starts to realize that he can’t leave Lili behind, leading him to question who he really is. As Lili takes over, Einar and Gerda’s marriage becomes increasingly strained.

First, I don’t have a problem with the casting of Eddie Redmayne as a trans character. It is a choice that does show a prejudice against real trans performers, but it is also clearly a pragmatic choice, given that the majority of the running time, if not all of it, is taken up with Lili in a man’s body. Where the film does feel more problematic is in the fact that it has been made by a cis cast and crew, dealing with an issue that is not, forgive the term, theirs. One wonders will there be any trans people on the stage if The Danish Girl wins any of the awards that are so clearly its raison d’ȇtre. Add to this the fact that certain details of the real-life Wegener couple’s relationship have been omitted to avoid being too shocking (or too confusing to an audience less well-versed in trans issues), and we have a film on trans people, but made for a cis audience.

But none of that really matters all that much since the film is so hopelessly made you are left wondering how it ever got off the ground. Hooper, an odd director at the best of times, has created a leaden, bewildering film that feels avant-garde in its inability to emotionally engage the audience, so refined you pray for someone to throw a chair. And there are things here that should have worked. Gerda’s predicament – seeing the man she loves slowly disappearing, and yet accepting that she (Lili) is the better for it – is rich in dramatic possibilities, and Vikander does try her best, but the film never develops this enough. The reason for this might be that Hooper and writer Lucinda Coxon were too wary of showing Lili in a less than favourable light and so have tried to underscore Gerda’s pain. Gerda is never nothing but understanding, in case, presumably, a more bitter or angry Gerda becomes an audience surrogate. It means that any scene that is clearly intended as a dramatic pay-off (particularly one scene in which Gerda tells a doctor that she believes that her husband really is a woman – one already spoiled in the trailer) passes almost unnoticed. Other scenes ought to be just as powerful, but the film is somehow so inane that they don’t show through. A scene in which Lili strips in front of a mirror should be sad, but it is so drowned in tragic score and so rushed that it lacks subtly. A scene where she is beaten in a park by two thugs is so familiar and structurally inevitable (given that there is little enough conflict elsewhere) and done with so little spark, that it is thoroughly possible to forget it while you are watching it. The camerawork is frequently very poor and the framing is bewildering - Hooper decides during one dramatic moment to place a rather happy dog centre of the frame and staring into the camera. But bad form aside, it feels as if Hooper doesn’t think his audience can take a film like The Danish Girl without some sort of crutch – an overbearing score, an intensely familiar story set-up, characters entirely rid of their foibles and messiness. Hooper tells us to feel sad, but his film is so lifeless and ineffectual, that he can’t make us.

By the end, Hooper settles for Lili’s scarf flying off with the breeze, an image of freedom from restraint, a tragic death made triumphant, and surely a trick that can’t possibly still be fooling audiences. The Danish Girl is a drama that wants to be rewarded for tackling a trans subject, but it is so afraid of its subject that it rids it of all human complications and conflict. As such, it fundamentally does not trust its audience, feeling the need to deify trans issues in an effort to convince. An already understanding, compassionate audience will feel insulted, but mainly they’ll feel bored and, yes, disappointed. Meanwhile, those out-of-work trans performers and filmmakers are left to watch in silence, their own work undermined by industry disinterest, low budgets and uninspired niche distribution.

REVIEW: Les Miserables (2013)

Les Misérables is an adaptation of the hugely successful stage musical based on Victor Hugo’s massive book of the years following the French Revolution. The film has already been feted with critical success and a lot of awards buzz, much of that based on director Tom Hooper’s decision to record the songs live and often in long close-ups.

The film begins in 1815, 26 years after the start of the French Revolution and a king back on the throne, where Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) has been in prison for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread. He is overseen by the tyrannical Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe). Valjean is paroled and quickly falls back into a life of crime until a kindly bishop (Colm Wilkinson) inspires him to change his life. Valjean breaks his parole and embarks on a just life, doggedly pursued nonetheless by Javert.

The film begins with the massive spectacle of a not entirely convincing CGI ship being pulled to shore by a chain gang. The film’s starts epic but remains largely intimate for the rest of the film, it’s best moments nearly all shot in close-up. However, Hooper seems ambivalent about being too intimate and, not unlike Andrew Dominik’s direction in Killing Them Softly, frequently shows that he can do spectacle. As a result, the camera soars into the air to show a large Parisian cityscape, often when a close-up would have been more revealing. Similarly, the film can be horribly choppy – again, the film’s best moments often come in long drawn-out shots. Valjean jumps from prison to the mountains to a meeting with a parole officer to an attack by the police to the bishop’s stable in barely any time and his subsequent robbery, capture and salvation is rushed despite its narrative significance. The film often comes to resemble a shallow MTV music video more than the intimate and emotional musical that it clearly wants to be.

Victor Hugo’s novel seems like an adaptation nightmare and yet there have been numerous versions of the story, most played straight. Hooper’s film moves through 33 years of French history and makes an attempt to be faithful to the novel’s wide range of incidents and characters. As a result, the film can be very messy and certain shifts in perspective feel quite bumpy, such as when Valjean steps aside and the revolutionary youth Marius (Eddie Redmayne) and the heartbroken Eponine (Samantha Barks) take centre stage. Similarly, there is a problem with the film’s tone, which shifts awkwardly from Anne Hathaway’s damaged, undoubtedly Oscar-worthy rendition of  “I Dreamed A Dream” and Hugh Jackman’s moving “Who Am I?” to the bawdy farce of “Master of the House.” Sasha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter, playing Monsieur and Madame Thenardier, are undeniably funny, but they go some way towards destroying the film’s seriousness and its emotional impact. While they take up way too much screen time, Amanda Seyfried’s Cosette is too often sidelined. Equally, the plot keeps her at unawares until the very end of the film, where Claire Danes’ Cosette in the admittedly more mundane 1998 version is given a lot more attention and intelligence. Similarly, the ending awkwardly turns around Valjean and Marius hiding Valjean’s past from Cosette, an unnecessary subterfuge that robs Cosette of any real role in the film. In the 1998 version, Claire Danes is told about her past fairly quickly and becomes a co-conspirator rather than a brainless symbol of innocence.

Hooper’s film favours Marius and the rather redundant Eponine and yet is no more attentive to these characters. Eponine is swiftly introduced and dispatched and her singing solo is not very interesting, while Marius is practically unknowable. Here we have an ardent revolutionary and a brave fighter and yet he is not above a glitzy bourgeoisie wedding only days after the violent destruction of his revolution. He returns to his father, a rich man who was previously openly contemptuous of everything that his son stood for. The film ends hopefully with the suggestion that the student’s sacrifice will breed further revolutions in the people and yet Marius, one of the revolution’s staunchest creators, will not take part. Coming out during the current political climate, the film cannot help but bring to mind the Occupy movement yet the film’s finale, a spirited and moving reprise of “Do You Hear The People Sing?”, is as rousing as it is insincere.

Les Misérables is a film that aims for greatness and every now and then that greatness does manage to seep through, yet the overall impression is of an unsubtle and cack handed emotional barrage in which many potentially moving scenes are either botched or overblown. Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman are both very good, intermittently able to portray an emotional honesty despite the often too obvious Oscar stage-managing. Indeed, Les Misérables is undeniably powerful, though it seems that oftentimes this is more down to Victor Hugo’s original work than the adaptations of Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg or Tom Hooper. Ultimately, the film had a lot of potential but it was too often thwarted by a director who seems more interested in cinematic device than emotional undercurrent, becoming merely a great hits collection of heightened Oscar clips rather than a sustained emotional experience.

See also: The King's Speech (2011)

REVIEW: The King's Speech (2011)

  The King’s Speech comes out at the beginnings of the awards season, having already cleaned up at the British Independent Film Awards and with seven Golden Globe nominations. It looks and sounds like a big contender but at it’s heart it is a much simpler tale.

  The film tells the story of King George VI (Colin Firth), who suddenly has greatness thrust upon him following the abdication of his brother (Guy Pearce). With war with Germany looming, George must find within himself the courage and the voice to lead his nation through the tough times ahead. Many failed attempts at reducing his stutter lead him to unorthodox speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). Logue’s odd techniques and the uneasy friendship that builds between the two men help George find in himself what his country demands.

  The film’s trailer would almost convince that The King’s Speech is about a country facing a very dark future in dire need of a leader. It heightens the film’s thriller aspects, but The King’s Speech is not that film. It spends very little time focusing on the ‘ordinary man’ and his need for rousing calls to arms. Instead, it focuses on the unlikely friendship of George and Logue, the comic intricacies of their relationship and on George’s struggles with a debilitating speech impediment. The film is poignant and funny in equal measure, with Rush having most of the good lines and Firth playing the suffocating monarch with great delicacy. The two actors give great performances, effortlessly conveying years and years of companionship as the story takes of from 1925 to 1939.

  The film thankfully dodges all the pitfalls that plague most films about disability, being a realistic account of a speech disorder. It neither patronises its lead character nor does it suggest that there is a quick and easy cure in an attempt to wrap everything up with a neat, little bow. The King’s Speech manages to be one of those rare films that attempt to raise awareness with both respect and the ability to entertain along the way.

  The film’s main failure is it’s attempts to present the story of Britain. Unlike Invictus, which manages to convince that winning the Rugby World Cup would be the best thing ever for the troubled South Africa, the national context appears trite and unimportant. The film is really about two people in a room, one of them coping with a speech disorder. It hints at certain social issues, the paradox of the ‘ordinary man’ and his King who knows nothing about him, neither man knowing quite how to act around the other. This is where the heart of the film lies and no amount of cameos from Chamberlains and Churchills or panoramic views of England getting ready for war will convince otherwise. Ultimately, when George gives his final speech, we feel for his character, not the country he represents.

  Nit-picking aside, The King’s Speech is a great film that cares about the disorder it is dramatizing and one with two riveting central performances. If it doesn’t have an impressive showing in the awards to come, it will be a damn shame.