While Redmayne may be the one picking up the awards nods for this film, it’s Alicia Vikander who really shines in this biographical drama. Vikander’s character, Gerda Wegener, displays a whole range of emotion as she is pulled from rejection to despair, from joy to fear. While ultimately the tragic ending does display, once again, Redmayne’s ability to play illness and dying, it’s Vikander’s performance which holds the story together and shows, crucially, how Einar’s transformation into Lili had not only an impact on his own life, but those of a great number of people around him.
A distinctly average film from Bradley Cooper. Filmed, presumably, while Mr Cooper was appearing in The Elephant Man in the West End, it almost seems this film was put together just to entertain him during the days between stage appearances. Lacking somewhat in substance, with no plot twist or complexity and what seems almost forced emotion, the films only saving grace is it’s very manageable hour-and-a-half-ish runtime.
An excellently enjoyable mix of action, thriller and comedy put together expertly by Guy Ritchie. This film leaves it wide open at the end to allow for the inevitable sequels; after all there are 105 original stories from the 1960 series to crying out for the big screen treatment.