Trama

A love story loosely inspired by the lives of Danish artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. Lili and Gerda's marriage and work evolve as they navigate Lili's groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.

Copenhagen, Denmark, 1926. Einar Wegener and his wife Gerda are a happily married couple. Both are artists, Einar preferring landscapes and she portraits. One day Einar poses for a portrait of Gerda's while wearing a dress. This is initially done as a lark, as is the later attendance at a party dressed as a woman. However, Einar soon discovers that she is in fact a woman and over time prefers being Lili. At first she and Gerda try to have her situation "cured" but this leads nowhere (other than to many doctors trying to have Lili locked up as a pervert and/or lunatic). Her voyage of self-discovery will ultimately lead to her undergoing the first ever sex-change operation.—grantss

Copenhagen, Denmark, 1926. Happily married artists Einar and Gerda Wegener come under strain when Gerda playfully asks her husband to fill in for one of her female models. Suddenly, as Einar reluctantly poses for her wearing an elegant dress, the intimate experience triggers a subtle transformation inside the perplexed painter. Convinced he is Lili, a woman trapped in a man's body, Einar boldly accepts his true self and starts living as a woman. But, to everyone's surprise, the radical change is not an ephemeral caprice. After all, Einar is determined to live his new life to the fullest. Despite facing prejudice, discrimination, social dictations, and public outcry, Einar plucks up the courage to fight for the right to be different and undergoes a highly experimental sex reassignment surgery. The trailblazing decision made Lili a notable transgender pioneer.—Nick Riganas

1926. Copenhagen-based married couple Einar and Gerda Wegener, who are madly in love, have so far tried unsuccessfully to have a child. They both work as artists, and while Einar has a modicum of critical success for his landscapes, Gerda has not had much critical success with her portraits. An innocent enough request by Gerda to her husband leads to Einar exploring his feminine side. While Gerda sees that exploration all in fun, it becomes more for Einar, who, hearkening back to a time long ago in his past, ultimately allows himself truly to believe that he is a woman, "Lili", born into a male body. He wants to experience all that being Lili is, including sexually, and not as Einar pretending to be a woman. The emotions that Gerda develops when she learns what Einar is truly going through spurs some creative energy in her art, which was not present before. Wanting some medical diagnosis for what she is feeling, Lili is told again and again that she is crazy, most physicians who want to institutionalize her on the spot, until she meets Dr. Kurt Warnekros, who believes he can perform two risky gender reassignment surgeries for her fully to become Lili. As such, Lili dreams of getting remarried and having a child in that post-surgery life. Both Lili and Gerda have to decide how long Gerda will go along with Lili for this ride, especially as they both know that the end, if it happens, is that Gerda will lose her husband forever, Lili who states it meaning all of Einar including his art.—Huggo

In the mid-1920s Copenhagen, portrait artist Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander) attends an art gallery. The artwork is observed by Gerda Wegener. A patron comments that Gerda's work is not as exquisite as her husband's, the artist of the painting Gerda was admiring. The gallery owner declares Gerda's husband, Einar Wegener, to be part of the one percent of gifted Danish talents. It is the year 1926 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Einar and Gerda walk home from the art show together. She makes fun of the man declaring Einar part of the one percent.

The next morning, Gerda is painting a man's portrait. Simultaneously, Einar visits their friend, Ulla Paulson (Amber Heard) at her ballet class. He says he wants to give Gerda space to work, and his presence would be distracting. At their home, Gerda tells a middle-aged man who she is painting that men tend to be afraid of the gaze of a woman. Einar is working on a painting of his own, of five trees in the woods, an actual sight in their town. His paintings take much longer to complete than hers, as he is very meticulous at detail. Einar and Gerda are affectionate with each other, and they begin to have sex. While she is undressing, he asks her to leave her undergarments on as he finds them beautiful. He caresses her clothes and then they make love.

Gerda is finishing a large portrait of a woman, but Ulla is supposed to serve as her model, and she has not arrived. Gerda asks her spouse, Einar Wegener, to stand in for Ulla. She asks Einar to wear the stockings and shoes so that she can finish painting that part of the picture. She then has him hold the dress up so that it will flow over the stockings properly. Ulla shows up with flowers. She is delighted at the sight of Einar serving as the model and hands him a Lili, telling him that that must be his name.

Gerda meets with an art collector to evaluate her portraits and paintings, including the one with the stockings. He tells her that sketches of people are commonplace and there is nothing unique about them, but she is a good artist who just needs a better subject.

When Gerda returns home, she explains the feedback she received to Einar. They begin to kiss, and she begins to take off his shirt. Underneath, he is wearing her undergarments. This takes her aback, but she doesn't acknowledge it directly and instead, she simply continues touching him underneath the brassiere he is wearing.

There is an event that Gerda and Einar are invited to but he doesn't want to go because the people gush over him as an artist. Gerda realizes that he can go in disguise, as Lili. Gerda puts makeup on Einar's face and finds a wig for him. He has transformed and he delights at being able to inhabit the identity of a woman. Lili is left on his/her own and she catches the eye of Henrik (Ben Whishaw) who is immediately intrigued by "her". They isolate themselves and Henrik flirts with Lili, who is awkward in response. Henrik tells her a man should always ask a woman before he kisses her and then leans in.

Gerda now has found her subject: she paints Einar as Lili. When she presents these paintings to the art collector, he loves them and wants to have a show with them. The collector wants to meet the model but Gerda tells him it was Einar's cousin who has since left town.

The experience of posing for Gerda's painting inspires Einar to come out as transgender and rename herself Lili Ilse Elvenes (Eddie Redmayne), later adopting the surname Elbe. This sets off a progression, first tentative and then irreversible, of leaving behind the masculine gender expression Lili has struggled to maintain all her life.

They do and the doctor makes notes of the nosebleeds, as well as the stomach cramps he imagines having once a month. Einar tries to explain he has always felt like a girl despite being in a male body.

The next time Gerda meets the art collector, she is told he sold all the paintings and there is representation interested in her in Paris. He encourages her to go and become an esteemed artist in France. Gerda encourages Einar to join her, as she will need Lili as a model for her paintings.

Lili and Gerda relocate to Paris. Gerda's portraits of Lili in her feminine state attract serious attention from art dealers in a way that Gerda's previous portraits did not.

While Gerda is out that evening, Einar goes to the seedy part of Paris' red-light district and enters a peep-show club. He watches a woman strip naked. But instead of being aroused by her, he starts to mimic her movements. She notices this and they do a back-and-forth game where they mirror each other. Gerda tracks down art dealer Hans Axgil (Matthias Schoenaerts), Einar's childhood friend (whom Einar had kissed when they were young). When they get to the house, Einar is dressed as Lili. Gerda explains that this is Einar's cousin and Einar is out. "Lili" brazenly flirts with Hans who is very suspicious. Lili becomes frazzled and runs off.

Gerda attends an art show for her Lili paintings. Hans is there and he tries to kiss her, knowing that her husband is a transsexual, but she stops him and tells him, "Einar is still my husband". Hans and Gerda's mutual attraction is a challenge as Gerda is navigating her changing relationship with Lili. Hans' long-time friendship with and affection for Einar causes him to support Lili and Gerda.

Gerda wonders if she has turned Einar into a transsexual when she dressed him up for the event but he tells her he's felt like that his whole life and she merely gave him the first opportunity to experience it.

As Lili continues suppressing her transgender identity, she starts to seek help from psychologists. The first doctor suggests a lobotomy, telling Einar he will make two holes on each side of his head. The second one tells Einar that his diagnosis is bad that he believes Einar is a homosexual. The third excuses himself during the meeting. When Einar looks at his notes, he sees the man suspects that Einar is a schizophrenic. As the doctor rushes back to the office with a security team and a straitjacket, Einar escapes out a window.

Eventually, at Ulla Poulsen's (Amber Heard) recommendation, Lili and Gerda meet Dr. Kurt Warnekros (Sebastian Koch).

Dr. Warnekros explains that he has met other transgender women. He proposes an innovative and controversial solution for Lili: male-to-female sex reassignment surgery. He also mentions that this is the second time he has offered this surgery, but the first patient got too nervous and left before the surgery began. This would entail a two-part procedure that involves first removing Lili's external genitalia and then, after a period of recovery, fashioning a vagina. He warns Lili and Gerda that it is a very dangerous operation which has never been attempted before, and Lili would be one of the first to undergo it. Lili immediately agrees and, soon after, travels to Germany without Gerda to begin the surgery.

The doctor goes over the procedure with Einar/Lili, and she glows with anticipation. She tells the doctor she hopes her husband will be handsome like he is and mentions her hope of giving birth. The doctor warns that the surgery will be very brutal, but Einar/Lili says she will sleep through it.

Gerda stays behind for a while but ultimately decides she should be by Lili's side. She arrives after Lili has completed the first surgery, who is very much in pain with a serious infection and a negative prognosis. She is given estrogen pills to take every few hours but explicitly told to spread them out throughout the day. After Gerda helps Lili heal, she enjoys living her life completely as a woman. Instead of painting, she gets a job as a salesclerk in a local department store. She shares some tips on how to apply perfume to customers, telling them that when she was in Paris, women never applied perfume directly on their skin. They would spray it in the air and then walk into it. This tip is well received.

Gerda runs into Lili in the marketplace, where she is fraternizing with Henrik. Lili visits Gerda's home and tells her she is not romantically linked to Henrik because he is a homosexual. Gerda tries to encourage Lili to paint alongside her like they used to. But Lili is adamant that she has left Einar behind and no longer wants to do the things she did when she was living as a male. Lili stays a while but decides it is time to go for the second surgery, much to Gerda's distress. Lili again leaves alone.

Gerda again shows up after the surgery is complete, but Lili is pale and weak. She feels complete and insists she be taken out to the garden again. In a weak voice, she says that she finally feels like who she was meant to be. She adds that God made her a girl but there was some mistake in her physicality.

Lili dies of complications from the second surgery while talking with Gerda. Gerda and Hans travel to a hilltop back in Denmark where Hans and Lili grew up, in front of the five trees Lili often painted. The scarf that Lili had originally given Gerda, which had subsequently been given back and forth several times, is carried away in the wind, dancing.