There’s a moment towards the end of The Theory of Everything that gives you an insight into the world of Stephen Hawking. Hawking (Eddy Redmayne) and his first wife Jane (Felicity Jones) are at Buckingham Palace, invited to meet the Queen of England, and Jane remarks that the moment is incredible. Being at Buckingham Palace as guests of British royalty, et al, is something she couldn’t have fathomed doing. Hawking, by this time completely crippled by ALS and using a computerized voice to communicate, can only remark at how amazing the couple’s trio of children are. It’s a rare moment where the moment doesn’t feel as big as it could be; Hawking is watching his children and is still in wonder that he could help create them.
The problem is that The Theory of Everything isn’t filled with enough of these sorts of insights into his life, focusing instead on his disability and physics career to the point where it feels like a greatest hits compilation of his career as seen through an epic length mini-series edited down for a feature length film.
The Theory of Everything is a biopic of Hawkings, one of modern history’s greatest minds in physics, as detailed by his first wife Jane. Diagnosed with ALS as a young man, he was given two years to live. He defied the odds, losing his ability to move (and eventually his ability to speak) but managed to be among the foremost minds when it comes to physics in the modern era. The film follows him from the moment he met his first wife Jane as a graduate student in physics through their marriage, his body deteriorating along the way, through both of their second marriages.
The problem of the film is that it tries too hard to focus on the bulk of his career, from graduate student to one of the world’s eminent scholars, and compresses too much into the film’s running length. The most interesting parts of the film are the first act, when he goes from an awkward but brilliant student to one with a veritable death sentence, and the film grinds its way through the rest. Seeing Hawking as a young man, dealing with his illness (and losing all muscle control over the years), is fascinating because it forces Eddie Redmayne to act.
This portion of Hawking’s life is interesting because seeing how he reacts to it all is far more interesting than merely him doing a contortion act to mimic Hawking with his ability to move taken away. It’s nothing new for an actor to have to act by not using his body, as both Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Javier Bardem (The Sea Inside) have done it as well, and Redmayne gives us an insight into the locked in aspect of Hawking’s life. The problem is that once he arrives at this place the film doesn’t do much beyond give us a glimpse into the man’s history beyond the obvious.
It’s that first portion of his life, the years before he was fully crippled, where the film genuinely shines. The film posits the romance of Jane and Stephen as a childhood love that probably would’ve disappeared if not for Hawking’s illness. They don’t have a great love affair, only one that accelerated seemingly out of necessity, and the film tackles this as they deal with the profound complications of being good people … but not right for one another. Their relationship becomes interesting to look at through that lens and becomes part of the film’s focus.
And if we saw the Hawking marriage through that glance, and with Felicity Jones and Redmayne alone, this would make for a much more interesting film than what is put on there. The early years of their marriage are incredibly interesting … but the film itself can’t sustain this early brilliance.
Director: James Marsh
Writer: Anthony McCarten based off the novel “Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen” by Jane Wilde Hawking
Notable Cast: Eddy Redmayne, Felicity Jones, David Thewlis
