The Theory of Everything
Director: James Marsh
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Tom Prior
123 mins; Class 12;
KRS Releasing Ltd
Next Sunday, Eddie Redmayne will in all likelihood walk away with the Best Actor Oscar for his brilliant performance as distinguished astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.
Despite charting a large chunk of this brilliant man’s life , this film is less a biopic than a love story, dealing as it does with the relationship between Hawking and his first wife Jane.
It is 1963 in Cambridge and the bespectacled and - it must be said – geeky cosmology student Hawking is on the brink of an extraordinary career in his chosen field as he searches for a “simple, eloquent explanation for the universe”.
In the meantime, sparks fly when he meets fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones), an arts student. The world is certainly his oyster. However, tragedy strikes when, at a mere 21 years of age, he collapses in the ground of his college and discovers he has motor neuron disease; a horrific diagnosis that doctors say will leave him with merely two years to live.
That today, 52 years later, Hawking is still very much alive is testament not only to his remarkable fight against the disease but to the incredible support Jane provided.
Director James Marsh’s directs solidly if a little unimaginatively, yet no ostentation is required as it is the central human relationship that is the heart and soul of the story.
Marsh has a strong supporting cast to work with including Thewlis and Charlie Cox as close family friend Jonathan Hellyer-Jones, yet he leaves all the heavy lifting – in all senses of the word – to the two leads; and drawing out superb performances from them both.
Although she has an extended CV under her belt, Jones is little known, but her performance as Jane has certainly thrown her under the international spotlight, earning numerous nominations for her performance.
A performance full of heart and strength
Jane is undoubtedly a remarkable woman, one who made considerable career and personal sacrifices; and Jones offers a beautifully understated performance, capturing the conflicting emotions brought on by the overwhelming difficulties she faced.
Detractors may cynically dismiss Redmayne’s performance as simply an awards-baiting one. Yet, they overlook the fact that the greatness of his performance lies in what he gives beyond the astonishing physical one.
From news stories and documentaries, Stephen Hawking is instantly recognisable as the man in a motorised wheelchair who communicates via a voice-activated device and Redmayne doesn’t need to play all that up.
He effortlessly communicates Hawking’s indescribable struggles and frequent humiliations with genuine feeling. Furthermore, one of the joyous discoveries of his performance is Hawking’s self-deprecating sense of humour, his playfulness, his unwavering love of life, his wife and children and of course his work.
It is a performance full of heart and strength, which grows all the more poignant as he continues inexorably to decline physically while his career reaches higher apexes and his perfect home life begins to fragment.
A scene where the couple reach a sad realisation encompasses the excellence of the two performers.