THE DANISH GIRL takes place in the Expanded Universe of Oscar Bait, where the light is diffuse, all prostitutes are beautiful, everyone speaks vaguely accented English, and the only litter in the world is that plastic bag from American Beauty. Here, Eddie Redmayne—the reigning king of the EUOB—plays Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe, a Danish painter who was one of the first people to undergo sex-reassignment surgery. Most of The Danish Girl is about Lili's wife, Gerda (Alicia Vikander), coming to terms with the fact that her husband is a woman, as if that's the interesting story here.
Redmayne's performance is beyond hammy: He's an over-processed ham product of questionable provenance, like ballpark hotdogs or pink slime, and I don't know why we're all supposed to continue pretending that he's a good actor. He has his "aren't I brave?" face on throughout The Danish Girl—but no, portraying a tragic-but-doomed trans heroine is not brave, Eddie Redmayne, you goober. Brave would be telling a story about a world in which trans people are allowed to fucking live for once. The Danish Girl is a sad movie not because of the predictable, doomed trajectory of Lili, but because Hollywood can't imagine a version of her life that isn't a tragedy.