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Rating: 4 out of 5
I really don’t know much about Stephen Hawking beside the fact the man was an absolute genius in his field of study. He had ALS that left him wheelchair-bound and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from former President Obama. I know very little of his research besides the fact that he studied Cosmology or maybe black holes. Once again, the dude was a GENIUS and beyond anything, my little brain could comprehend. The man was a legend all the way until his death in March of 2018.
The Theory of Everything is a film from the 2007 memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen by Jane Hawking. The book deals with her relationship with her ex-husband Stephen Hawking, his ALS diagnosis, and his success in the field of physics. You can only imagine what one person went through as they learned about ALS. Still, no one goes through a journey alone, and it is fascinating to see some of what the other person had to go through for years.
The movie starts off with University of Cambridge student Stephen Hawking (Redmayne) attending a party and meets Jane Wilde (Jones) for the first time. There is an initial spark between the two as they spot each other across the room. They both spend the party talking and find out that Stephen is pursuing his doctorate but doesn’t have a thesis while Jane is studying literature. The two are polar opposites in the sense of differing world perspectives of faith and science, but through this, a romantic relationship develops. A gut-punch soon comes as Stephen is diagnosed with a motor neuron disease and decides to shut the world out, believing he only has two years to live.
Rather than giving up on the relationship, Jane declares her love for Stephen, and soon after, they marry and start a family. As the years seem to go by in their lives, they grow a family with several children. Stephen begins to become world-renowned as the “little man,” as one doctor calls him, by breaking new ground in the fields of theoretical physics and cosmology. As his stature in the field grows, his body shuts down more and more with each passing year. The only thing that is still alive and well is his mind and his charming personality. Little by little, Jane starts to lose who she is and slowly descends into depression while facing the immense challenges in her life.
The film is enjoyable to watch for the performances. Even though it is based on the non-fiction book “Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen,” authored by the real Jane Wilde, she is not the focal point in the film. Actually, she is relatively a side mark in the whole movie. What I think I am trying to say is that you see their relationship at the beginning on how it blossoms along with the trials of it, but it doesn’t get deep into it, in my opinion. We see the love, and then towards the end, we know the strain of being with someone who has ALS and doing all the housework for one person. I think it would have been a tad bit better to explore more of her story because that is an adventure to care for someone for 30 full years and then ultimately split. Was the third baby really Stephen or not?
Now the film makes it a focal point to explore Hawking’s insights and studies in the areas of black holes. With it being a Hollywood film, somethings could be very overexaggerated, but I would’ve liked to see how much people agreed and disagreed with his findings. We really only get one scene of this, and then it was like he was a driving force of the field. Once again, this is coming from a memoir of another person, but the movie is about one of the greatest minds in history. We see a glimpse of how he came up with his research ideas like when he tried to put on his sweater and looking through it at a fire comes up with some new theory.
One thing that I couldn’t wrap my head around was having a single equation solving everything in life. How you can sit and think about time and say that one equation will solve everything. I find that crazy because sometimes Jane and Stephen disagreed because her faith was strong and he was an atheist. On top of that, to develop an equation and state for years, it is a fact and then spends time disproving it all together. The mind works in mysterious ways.
The cinematography should be talked about. Sometimes the film made you feel for the characters in certain ways. When Stephen is first diagnosed, you see the tests, but the one scene that shows his broken spirit was when he was sitting in the bathtub alone, hunched over. The room was dimly lit against in an empty room. It was depressing. The cinematography really shows when it becomes a family-style homemade film. You felt like you were holding the camera and part of the family during their vacation time. Like before, another scene was the development of an idea that Stephen had when looking through his sweater. It seemed like he was watching the universe being made in a single second in his mind.
Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking needs to be applauded for this role. My friend always states that when someone goes through a significant physical transformation, they are usually a prominent front runner to win an Oscar. What sets Redmayne apart is how the homeboy embodied Stephen’s personality, from his awkward, nerdy way to his stubbornness and facial expressions. It was like you were looking at a younger version of Stephen.
Felicity Jones, as Jane Hawking, also needs to be commended. She gave an equally strong performance for her role. When seeing the physical toll Stephen went through, but what made Jane such a character is the mental toll it took on her. Jones was able to show this as time went on. Being a strong person in the beginning to just being beaten down towards the end was tough.
The Theory of Everything is not about the discoveries and research of Stephen Hawking but a love story between himself and Jane. Yes, there are elements to Hawking’s research and how he became a wheelchair user, but overall, it is the life that he and Jane had together. Redmayne and Jones are fantastic in their respective roles. Sometimes love can find a way rather than having an all telling equation.
