I’ll admit to not being predisposed to liking this: Tom Hooper’s direction is dreadful. His wonky angles ruined the TV series John Adams; he set The King’s Speech in a dilapidated stage set; and nobody told him that there are microphones now so that he really didn’t have to shoot up the actors’ nostrils when they were singing in Les Miserables. Then there’s the subject matter: transsexualism is very ‘now’ but even I had to feel awful for porn-perv Kardashian momager Kris at the wretched treatment she received from macho athlete hubby Bruce Jenner when he decided that what he really wanted was a vagina, stripper heels and long hair. Brutal: we must conclude that Caitlyn Jenner is a thundering bitch, m’lud. So here we have the true-life story of artist Einar whose wife made the mistake of cross-dressing him up to sit for her paintings only to find that he didn’t want to be male any longer. The loathsome Ben Whishaw hits on him; he decides to have groundbreaking surgery and transforms into Lili Elbe; and Putin-alike Matthew Schoenaerts arrives to inject some testosterone into proceedings. Too late, I fear. Alicia Vikander, shot to look like a racial mutant, pouts, Eddie Redmayne preens insufferably like the fey fairy of your nightmares and it all takes place in the same dilapidated shabby set of The King’s Speech with everyone wearing the worst wigs this side of Liberace’s trashcan. Excruciating!
mondomovies 