The Theory of Everything (2014)
Certified: 12A
Duration: 123 minutes
Directed by: James Marsh
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Maxine Peake, Charlie Cox, Harry Lloyd, Emily Watson, Guy Oliver-Watts, Simon McBurney, Abigail Cruttenden, Charlotte Hope, Lucy Chappell, David Thewlis
KRS Releasing Ltd
Eddie Redmayne plays Stephen Hawking who in 1963 is a brilliant cosmology student and everyone, including his professor Dennis Sciama (David Thewlis), is waiting for him to decide on his career. When he goes out with his room-mate Brian (Harry Lloyd), he meets another student, Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones), and the two are soon enamoured with each other.
However, everything is not right with Stephen. He has been getting into an increasing number of accidents. He eventually finds out he has a motor neuron disease that will not only remove any control he has on the muscles of his body, but which also means a reduced life expectancy.
Stephen does not give up and continues his relationship with Jane. They get married and start a family, while he devotes more time to his studies and how time and the universe interrelate. However, physically, Stephen becomes more dependable on others and for Jane, this becomes a full-time occupation.
Help arrives in the form of Jonathan Hellyer Jones (Charlie Cox), a widower who becomes a family friend... and something more for Jane.
Stephen’s voice also deteriorates rapidly as he loses the ability to speak. He is however helped along by his nurse Elaine Mason (Maxine Peake), with whom he starts a relationship that goes beyond the medical. Meanwhile, Stephen’s ideas are simply more and more groundbreaking and his research and studies astound everyone.
The Theory of Everything is not simply a Stephen Hawking biopic. In fact, it is an adaptation of Jane’s memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen. As such, the film is about the two characters and it follows their journey without becoming an endless sob story. Instead, it is a story of courage and of how a relationship develops and matures.
At the backbone of this movie there is the pairing of Redmayne and Jones who both received Academy Award nominations for their role in this film, with Redmayne even winning the Bafta last weekend. The two have a genuine on-screen chemistry and it’s very difficult to detach one performance from the other.
Life is full of twists and surprises and in The Theory of Everything, Hawking’s disease is not one of them; this is something that the audience will come prepared to see. However, the way the couple’s relationship develops, how the two stress each other out, and how they also find comfort in other affairs, gives their relationship a very unusual turn.
I am not a huge fan of movies focused on illnesses and medical travails, but The Theory of Everything won me over as it turned the table on my expectations. The film is memorable on various levels. Redmayne as Hawking is brilliant and he manages to embody that sense of courage, determination and a towering spirit. On the other hand, Jones delivers a smooth performance even though she portrays a roller coaster of emotions. She is the one to provide that touch of scintillating sparkle to the film.
Director James Marsh, who had previously directed the intelligent Man on a Wire (2008), fills the picture with a palette of various tones and attitudes that all somehow seem to gel together seamlessly. The result is a true story filled with people whom you genuinely believe to have lived a life worth placing on-screen.