The Danish Girl
Focus Features | Release Date: November 27, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
66
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
12
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ObserverRex ReedNov 27, 2015
It’s anyone’s guess whether the amazing Mr. Redmayne’s most prestigious performance will go down in the archives as Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything" or as the tortured, androgynous woman trapped in a man’s body in The Danish Girl. But it’s a sure thing that he’ll be nominated for another Oscar. Read full review
100
New York PostSara StewartNov 24, 2015
Capping off the year that transgender stopped being transgressive, the story of artist Lili Elbe (Eddie Redmayne) makes for one of the year’s finest films. Read full review
100
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 6, 2015
There’s no denying that Hooper and screenwriter Lucinda Coxon have delivered a cinematic landmark, one whose classical style all but disguises how controversial its subject matter still remains. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranNov 27, 2015
Though much of the acting attention in Danish Girl will understandably go to Redmayne, Vikander's position as the audience surrogate plus her energy and passion as Gerda, a woman facing an exceptional challenge to her love of her husband, is more than essential. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 25, 2015
What Hooper has crafted is a work of probing intelligence and passionate heart. Read full review
88
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeSep 5, 2015
Director Tom Hooper shakes things up a bit with The Danish Girl, proving that he’s capable of making a movie that’s both steeped in awards-season prestige and in possession of a pulse. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerJan 4, 2016
Redmayne’s transformation may grab the headlines but it is Vikander’s touching turn that steals the show. Sedate, certainly, but The Danish Girl is touching, timely and exquisite. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe DziemianowiczNov 25, 2015
Eddie Redmayne’s enthralling star turn as a transgender pioneer in The Danish Girl affirms his status as an ace cinematic chameleon — a transformer who rivals Optimus Prime. If only the movie wasn’t quite so polite. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneNov 23, 2015
The movie is rife with confusions of every type, and Hooper handles them with clarity, grace, and a surprising urgency, far more at ease in this intimate drama than he was with the super-sized galumphings of “Les Misérables.” Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 5, 2015
[A] beautiful, humane and moving biopic. Read full review
75
The Film StageZhuo-Ning SuJun 14, 2016
Considering it tells such a singular and important story, one only wishes The Danish Girl could have been made with a lot more edge and not the usual Academy-friendly faux-progressiveness. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallDec 24, 2015
Fortunately, Hooper has a pair of extraordinary actors on which to hang The Danish Girl, two of the finest performances of women this year. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonDec 17, 2015
Only when the camera is on Vikander does the film transcend its artifice. In one of the year’s best performances, she imbues Gerda with such poignancy and grace that Redmayne all but fades into the background. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 10, 2015
There’s an inevitability about The Danish Girl being well received by critics and at awards ceremonies. This is, after all, a movie with a strong social message about tolerance and inclusivity. Dramatically, however, it’s a mixed bag. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaDec 10, 2015
It looks lovely in an art-directed way, and Eddie Redmayne, who won his Oscar earlier in the year for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, looks lovely, too. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperDec 10, 2015
This is a lovely movie.... So lovely a film, in fact, as to be nearly tame. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyNov 24, 2015
It feels like a movie that’s been lovingly crafted and put under glass in a museum. And I kept waiting for it to move me more than it did. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 23, 2015
[Hooper and Redmayne] find the humanity, here, the confusion and repulsion built on ignorance and darkness. And with a winning performance and a sympathetic eye, they shine a light into that darkness so that the rest of us can see. Read full review
75
HitfixGregory EllwoodSep 13, 2015
Considering Redmayne’s achievement it’s almost shocking that you can argue Vikander gives the more memorable performance. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 17, 2015
The Danish Girl is beautifully shot and tastefully made and acted, but only Vikander seems willing to take chances. Happily, she does. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensDec 3, 2015
In the early days of Einar's transformation, Redmayne conveys the degree to which gender is, for all of us, a skill acquired through observation and imitation. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 29, 2015
The film, directed by Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”) is beautifully visualized and steadfastly interesting, yet I kept wondering why I didn’t feel more involved in it. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 6, 2015
If the movie remains safe, there's no questioning its integrity, or the balance of porcelain vulnerability and strength that Eddie Redmayne brings to the lead role. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianJeff BakerDec 17, 2015
The subject is fascinating, the talent is undeniable, but the humanity that made Lili Elbe so memorable gets lost along the way. Read full review
67
The PlaylistJessica KiangSep 5, 2015
The fact is that both actors are very good, even if trapped in the amber of Hooper's overweeningly tasteful direction. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldDec 24, 2015
Eddie Redmayne’s performance in “The Danish Girl” feels like it’s in soft focus; like the movie, it’s gentle and blurry and not quite there. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrDec 10, 2015
The Danish Gir” wants to introduce us to a woman who helped forge a new way of thinking about what defines a person as a man or a woman. Mostly, though, it’s about the joy of sets. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireNov 29, 2015
Hooper’s latest is tasteful and restrained to a fault. It is easier to admire than love. Read full review
60
Total FilmKate StablesJan 4, 2016
Eddie Redmayne shines as a transgender trailblazer. But a stiff love story and stately staging make this Danish too sweet… Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.O. ScottNov 27, 2015
It’s impossible not to be moved by Lili’s self-recognition and by her demand to be recognized by those who care most about her. But it’s also hard not to wish that The Danish Girl were a better movie, a more daring and emotionally open exploration of Lili’s emergence. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyNov 24, 2015
There’s an irony that a movie about a trans individual who needs to live and be accepted as a woman should have some of the worst symptoms of a very straight and very male gaze. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenDec 16, 2015
Despite The Danish Girl’s lack of specificity regarding what motivates Einar’s transformation into Lili Elbe, the film is still quite lovely. Its compositions are lovely to look at, and the performances engaging. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayDec 10, 2015
For all of the virtuosity of Redmayne and Vikander’s performances, and for all its sensitivity and aesthetic appeal, The Danish Girl is content simply to present the ambiguities and contradictions of Lili and Gerda’s story, rather than delve into their gnarlier corners. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleDavid LewisDec 10, 2015
It’s obvious that this is a well-intentioned, sensitive labor of love, and Hooper’s strategy of keeping it safe is bound to bring in folks who might otherwise avoid such material. For the rest of us, we must settle for a film that is solid but never quite soars. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNov 29, 2015
What Hooper can’t manage is to put us inside his characters’ heads — where we should be in a story that makes every surface suspect. Read full review
50
IndieWireEric KohnSep 13, 2015
The story suffers from a distracting aura of self-importance. Vikander brings a remarkable tenderness to her character (who, in real life, left her husband's side much earlier) but Redmayne's sharp gaze and toothy smile make it virtually impossible to ignore the actorly feat on display. Read full review
40
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonNov 24, 2015
If The Danish Girl dared to critique its main characters, it'd be brave. If it had celebrated a modern marriage that worked for 26 years — much longer and stranger than the film lets on — it'd be truly pioneering. Real life is full of kinks, mistakes, and selfish behavior. Biopics, however, are made of formulaic virtue. Read full review
40
Time Out LondonDave CalhounSep 7, 2015
What Hooper fails to do is get to grips with sexual identity in any way that's intellectually or emotionally provocative or surprising. That makes for a cold, pretty, delicate movie – one that too often relies on scene-stealing production design or the overwhelmingly insipid score for its otherwise strikingly absent emotional power. Read full review
40
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 5, 2015
The Danish Girl is as handsome yet disappointingly flat as a painting on a chocolate box. It should certainly be applauded for bringing to light an unsung hero of the transgenderism, but in its unremitting tastefulness and sentimentality - even a beating has beautiful setting and a lovely bit of blood - it ultimately left this reviewer as cold as a dip in a Danish bog. Read full review
40
The GuardianJonathan RomneySep 5, 2015
Well-meaning and polished as it is, The Danish Girl is a determinedly mainstream melodrama that doesn’t really offer new perspectives on its theme. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezNov 22, 2015
In so clearly viewing Lili through the lens of 21st-century political correctness, the film only blunts the resolve of her struggle. Read full review
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