Here’s a movie that’ll play well in Peoria: in The Danish Girl Nicole Kidman will play a man who becomes the world’s first transsexual, and Charlize Theron will play his wife. You can hear the Mormons shitting themselves from here.

Based on a 2000 novel by David Ebershoff (itself a fictionalized account of a true story), The Danish Girl will find Kidman and Theron playing Danish artists Einar and Greta Wegener. When a female model Greta was supposed to paint flakes, Einar puts on women’s clothing to help out his wife. It turns out he likes it. A lot. For a while Einar runs around in drag, pretending to be Greta’s sister, and then eventually decides to make it permanent – in 1931 he had his bait and tackle retired, shocking the entire world.

Anand Tucker (Shopgirl) is set to direct, and Kidman herself will be producing. The story sounds fascinating, but here’s my problem: I find Theron and Kidman to be two of the least charismatic leading actresses working today. Kidman is utterly without warmth, while Theron feels like a blank space. As intriguing as Einar and Greta Wegener’s tale may be, I’m much, much less interested with these two as the leads.