The Danish Girl (2015)

The Danish Girl is a 2015 biographical romantic drama film directed by Tom Hooper, based on the 2000 novel of the same name by David Ebershoff, and loosely inspired by the lives of Danish painters Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener.^[5] The film stars Eddie Redmayne as Elbe, one of the first known recipients of sex reassignment surgery, Alicia Vikander as Wegener, and Sebastian Koch as Kurt Warnekros, with Ben Whishaw, Amber Heard, and Matthias Schoenaerts in supporting roles.

The film participated in the main competition of the 72nd Venice International Film Festival,^[6][7] and it was shown in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.^[8] The film was released in a limited release on 27 November 2015 by Focus Features in the United States.^[9] The film was released on 1 January 2016, in the United Kingdom, with Universal Pictures International handling international distribution.^[10]

In spite of criticism for its inaccurate portrayal of historical events, Redmayne and Vikander's performances received widespread acclaim and nominations for all of the major acting awards. For their performances, Vikander won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and Redmayne was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, while the film received additional Academy Award nominations for Best Production Design and Best Costume Design. It was also nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Film.

In mid-1920s Copenhagen, portrait artist Gerda Wegener asks her husband, popular landscape artist Einar Wegener, to stand in for a female model who is late coming to their flat to pose for a painting she's working on.

The act of posing as a female figure unmasks Einar's life-long gender identity as a woman, who names herself Lili Elbe. This sets off a progression, first tentative and then irreversible, of leaving behind the identity as Einar, which she has struggled to maintain all her life. This takes place as both Lili and Gerda relocate to Paris; Gerda's portraits of Lili in her feminine state attract serious attention from art dealers in a way that her previous portraiture had not. It is there that Gerda tracks down art dealer Hans Axgil, a childhood friend of Lili (whom Lili had kissed when they were young). Hans and Gerda's mutual attraction is a challenge, as Gerda is navigating her changing relationship to Lili; but Hans' long-time friendship with and affection for Lili cause him to be supportive of both Lili and Gerda.

As Lili's continued existence presenting as male becomes too much to bear, she starts to seek help from psychologists, but none yields any result, and, in one instance, almost leads her to being committed to an asylum. Eventually, at Hans's recommendation, Lili and Gerda meet Dr. Kurt Warnekros. Dr. Warnekros explains that he has met several people like her, who are physically male but identify as female, and proposes a new, innovative and controversial solution: male-to-female sex reassignment surgery. This would entail a two-part procedure that involves first removing Lili's external genitalia and then, after a period of recovery, fashioning a vagina. He warns Lili and Gerda that it is a very dangerous operation that has never been attempted before, and Lili would be one of the first to undergo it. Lili immediately agrees and, soon after, travels to Germany to begin the surgery.

Lili eventually dies of complications from the surgery. The film ends with Gerda and Hans on a hilltop back in Denmark, in front of the five trees Lili had painted. The scarf that Lili had originally given Gerda, and that had subsequently been given back and forth several times, is carried away on the wind, dancing.