Hurry to the theater to see the story of Stephen Hawking’s life in The Theory of Everything
The Theory of Everything (Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones) – The race is over. Eddie Redmayne will win the Oscar for Best Performance By An Actor for his otherworldly performance as physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.
Redmayne, known best in the U.S. for his performances in Les Miserables and My Week With Marilyn, inhabits the role of Hawking from the scientist’s early days in college through his first trip to the United States.
Hawking: brilliant, affable, shy, and witty, is a Cambridge physics prodigy whose life takes a horrible turn when he finds out he has ALS. Given two years to live, Hawking goes into an understandable depression. It is his unlikely romance with Jane Wilde that pulls him out of despair and into a determination that he displays for the rest of his life. Still alive at 72, Hawking is a brilliant deep-thinker who first theorized about how the existence of black holes could prove that the beginning of time was definable only later to disprove his own theory.
This biopic is a study in hope and determination. But it is not only Hawking who perseveres; it is also Jane: his wife, his first love, his motivation and his caretaker. But while The Theory of Everything is certainly a love story, it is also a personal drama about the strains of marriage. Felicity Jones is understated but in command as Jane. She may even get nominated for her performance as the devoted wife whose dedication to Hawking is total but wearying.
The Theory of Everything is a quintessential art house film – well acted, brilliantly scripted (by Anthony McCarten from Jane Hawking’s book); capably directed (by James Marsh); and a bit too long. With an unobtrusive and somewhat depressing score, The Theory of Everything feels like a mood piece into which we, the audience, are intruding. It will most likely remind you of A Beautiful Mind without big stars and shock therapy.
That is perhaps the only knock on this movie: it is exactly like A Beautiful Mind. It tells the story of a brilliant student whose scientific contribution is made before age 30 and whose malady threatens to cut short the contributions he can make to society.
But the acting makes the movie experience mystical. And Redmayne is so believable … and unbelievable … that you will marvel and rejoice.