A Danish girl's costly self-denial

I didn’t go see The Danish Girl for insight into the gospel. Yet the parable played out in the film, which is nominated in four categories at the Oscars this Sunday, provides exactly that. It sheds light on the interplay between two Christian callings: self-affirmation and self-denial.

Ostensibly, The Danish Girl centers on the gender transition of rising artist Einar Wegener into Lili Elbe in 1926. From Einar’s first epiphany—the slide of silk over his skin—to his attendance at a peep show to learn and practice women’s gestures, actor Eddie Redmayne lingers over the details of discovering that one’s gender is not what one has always assumed.

This discovery is not linear. Einar wrestles with his desires, is terrified by the idea of dressing as a woman in public, and wonders about the future of his blissful marriage to painter Gerda Gottlieb (Alicia Vikander). The journey has that sense of inner striving found in Paul’s “pressing on toward the goal of…the heavenly calling,” but with a different calling: to become, as Lili says toward the film’s end, “finally myself.”