"The Danish Girl"

After Zumba, I decided to sit in a dark room and eat an obscene amount of popcorn, but figured a movie would go well with that too. I had seen all of the movies I wanted to, however, so decided to take a chance and see "The Danish Girl" with Eddie Redmayne. I didn't know a single thing about the movie, but knew Redmayne is up for Best Actor at the Academy Awards in March. Is he as good as Leonardo diCaprio?

The movie is about transgender issues. I didn't know! Big surprise!

Beautiful cinematography. Lovely Northern European light. Same director as for "Les Miserables".

As the movie veered into identity issues, I was having more and more problems with it. Too much jumping of gender sharks.

Redmayne has more expressive possibilities here than he did as Stephen Hawking, but his range still struck me as narrow.

The movie has editing issues. Scenes start half a second too early - you can practically see the actors inhale as they prepare to emote - lending the movie a curious stilted feel.

Something bugged me about Alicia Vikander's acting too. Alone of the cast, she pronounces the name "Hans" with a flat American accent, which is all the more baffling and unnecessary, since she's Swedish. All she has to do is say the name the way a Swede would say it. It's not just gender that's mixed up here. She's more expressive here than as the AI robot in "Ex Machina", however.

Still, Redmayne does a pretty good job. He's good with roles that feature physical distress. But he has competition. So, in March, we will find out if it's better to be dismembered by a pioneering surgeon or a grizzly bear.