5. Production Line Style
People may bemoan the likes of the Marvel movies for being blatantly constructed as if they're coming straight off a massive movie conveyor belt, but the same is true of the many Oscar bait films that clog up multiplexes for the months of awards season. They're all aesthetically similar, presenting history as both gritty and idealised. Coming from the director of Les Miserables and The King's Speech, things are ramped up to eleven here; it's pretty much all beautifully brutal landscapes scored to slow moving piano music juxtaposed with grimy, echoey rooms shot with a soft focus that put the characters at the edge of the frame for no clear purpose, along with the odd clearly CGI cityscape. It's so been-there-done that that even though trans issues have rarely been dealt with on such a large canvas, it feels incredibly rote and familiar. Worst of all, despite being set in Denmark (and yes, there is a very forced working in of the movie's title into the dialogue), all the main characters speak the Queens, a clear example of an attempt to add cliché prestige to the movie. The end result is that The Danish Girl feels fake, like a facsimile of the true story rather than the real account it seemingly wants to be.