Best Actress in a Supporting Role 2015: Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl

Alicia Vikander received her first Oscar nomination and won the trophy for her performance as Gerda Wegener in The Danish Girl. 

The Danish Girl is a rather poor movie about Lili Elbe, one of the first persons to undergo a sex reassignment surgery. Personally I don't care too much about Tom Hooper: the only movie directed by him that I ever liked is Les Misèrables but that's probably due to the great performances from the cast and the strength of the source material. Here his directing is mediocre at best - otherwise, it's just distractingly bad. But the biggest problem of The Danish Girl is its terrible screenplay as it seemingly doesn't have the slightest understanding of its subject and ends up being extremely shallow. The technical aspects aren't that great either: some of costumes are good, some aren't; a few sets are nice, others look incredibly cheap; and the score feels mostly out of the place or just plain wrong. 

Alicia Vikander's nomination in this category is a bit puzzling as she's far from being a supporting character in this movie: the story focuses on Gerda just as much as it focuses on Redmayne's Einar. Also I believe that if she had been campaigned right she'd have been double nominated - in the leading category for this, and in the supporting one for her breathtaking, far superior work in the excellent Ex Machina. But let's discuss her actual performance in The Danish Girl: as much as I don't care for the movie, I can't deny that this is a memorable performance and easily the shining light of this mess. The script doesn't make Gerda a complex or even particularly interesting character in the beginning, but Vikander does her best to give her as much personality as possible: she's charming and lively and whenever she's on screen she effortlessly steals the scene from everyone else thanks to her winning screen-presence. Her chemistry with Eddie Redmayne is not amazing but it's actually fairly sweet and they make for a believable couple. Most of the credit for this goes to Vikander as she seems to be the one who makes the biggest effort to establish a loving relationship between the two characters. Vikander also does a very good job in portraying Gerda's unstatisfaction as an artist as her work isn't quite as recognized as Einar's: she doesn't have too many scenes that allow her to explore in depth this side of her personality but she nonetheless portrays Gerda's frustration quite effectively. 

When Einar starts dressing up as a woman at Gerda's request, Vikander does a great job in initially showing how Gerda playfully takes the situation and the scenes in which Gerda "teaches" Einar how to act like a woman are rather enjoyable to watch. After she sees Einar kissing a man and after he admits to her that he feels to be actually Lili and not Einar - a scene in which she remarkably portrays her character's shock, confusion and hearbtreak -, Vikander is unfortunately forced to embody the role of the long-suffering wife that the Academy loves so much but that actually isn't very original or interesting most of the time: unfortunately, as it is written, Gerda is one of the most standard examples of this kind of role and Vikander's performance is often limited by the movie to some angry outbursts or teary-eyed reactions. It's a true testament to her talents that Vikander never becomes boring in the but instead brings life and energy to the dull proceeding. Her scenes too often feel like the same scene repeated over and over but Vikander to an extent overcomes this obstacle and manages to be rather touching: particularly, her big scene in which she begs Lili to "let her speak to Einar" is an heartbreaking moment and she nails every single emotion. In the quieter moments, Vikander thrives in portraying a woman who still clearly loves her husband and can't quite understand the situation around her. The screenplay does a very poor job at building up Gerda's eventual acceptance of Lili but Vikander is terrific nonetheless at showing Gerda's slow realization that if she really loves her husband she has to let her go and let her be what she truly is. Her committed performance and her beautiful portrayal of unconditional love is the only reason why the ending of the movie managed to be quite moving.

There's also the small subplot involving Gerda's potential romance with Hans, Einar's childhood friend. Their relationship is shallowly written and it feels more like a time-filler than anything else, but Vikander and the always good Matthias Schoenaerts manage to strike up a fine chemistry and make their scenes work. In the end, this is a powerful performance that might have been amazing if it had a stronger movie around it but still stands as a pretty great work just as it is. Despite the heavy limitations of the screenplay, Vikander delivers a moving performance that easily stands as the best thing of the movie and even if it's not her best work from 2015 it's still rather deserving of the accodales it received. 

4/5