Get ready for a review unlike any other. I’m giving The Danish Girl my “Emperor’s New Clothes” award this year, because it covers the politically correct issue du jour — transgenderism, and there’s so much heavy hitting talent involved that many critics are afraid to criticize it or see the film’s flaws. Most members of the media watch The Danish Girl parade pass by and cry, “This is so important!” “This is so heroic!” But I say, when all is said and done, it made me cringe.

With apologies to esteemed Academy Award winning director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Miserables) and Eddie Redmayne, whom I and Academy voters absolutely loved as Stephen Hawking in last year’s The Theory of Everything,  I have to say this is not their best, or most watchable, work. Redmayne plays Einer Wegener, a young painter who lived in 1920’s Copenhagen. He feels there’s something missing in his life until his beautiful wife (Alicia Vikander) asks him to model a pair of stockings so she can finish a painting she’s working on. At that point, all Lili breaks loose. The film is about his halting transition from the male Einer to the female Lili, and how his wife deals with it.

Now Vikander, whom you’ve seen and probably loved in Ex Machina and A Royal Affair, is phenomenal as the long suffering wife struggling to accept what’s becoming of her once masculine, sexual husband. Redmayne, on the other hand, swans and simpers, whimpers and whines, coos and cowers in a performance that crosses the line into overwrought and tiresome territory. Perhaps we’ve seen transgender people marvel and moon over the wonders of lipstick, lingerie and new found femininity once too often at this point. Or perhaps I’m just tired of the implication that that’s the essence of being a woman.

While Hooper has created a historical Denmark that is lush and beautiful, and the cinematography is supreme, the pacing is tedious, the film is overly long, and the payoff is nonexistent. Although the filmmakers try to be discreet and slather the ending with syrup, I found no inspiration, but rather a kind of grisly horror, in it. This is the story of a man who sacrifices absolutely everything to become the woman he believes he was meant to be, and is never quite satisfied, eventually making the ultimate sacrifice in a misguided effort to reach his ultimate goal. Now how is that story supposed to be encouraging to other transgenders, as the epilog claims?

Just because a story is true and involves a popular topic doesn’t mean it needs to be adapted into a screenplay. Granted, indie filmmaking is an important and vital outlet for all sorts of themes and techniques that I don’t find particularly interesting or appealing. I realize that this film was not made for me. I’m not saying it’s a bad film. I’m just saying I didn’t love it, and I want to give my readers a peek behind the hype so they understand what they’re getting into.

Rated R

2 Hours

Get times and tickets at Fandango.com.

THE DANISH GIRL Review — Not Buying Into the Hype