Review: The Theory of Everything

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★★★

Everyone knows Stephen Hawking and the impact he has made in the field of science. He’s a man of genius regardless of weather you agree with him or not on his stance of God and religion.  And the fact that he contributed that much while affected by such a debilitating disease makes his achievements even more astounding. But who exactly is Stephen Hawking? Sure, scientists and admirers alike could tell you a little about his life story, but what about the rest of us? “The Theory of Everything” explores the life of Hawking, but does so in a more unique fashion that a typical biopic. The film casts very little light on his research, and instead focuses on his relationship with his first wife Jane Wilde.

The film begins with Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) studying for his PhD at Cambridge in the early 1960s. He’s having a difficult time picking out what he’d like to do for his doctoral research. During this time, he starts to lose the ability to pick things up off the ground, write legibly and even walk properly. After an accident on campus, he’s diagnosed with motor neuron disease and given only two years left to live. This is shocking news for him, to say the least, but it also provides him a topic to research: time. He intends to come up with a mathematical equation that can prove the universe began as collapsing black hole.

There are no words to accurately describe Redmayne’s portrayal of Hawking in this film. He is absolutely astonishing and plays the role to absolute perfection. He begins the film as a man who is completely able to form perfect sentences and walk, but then slowly begins to deteriorate with each passing scene. Eventually, he ends up unable to move on his own and becomes confined to a wheelchair. Redmayne is so believable in this performance that he literally becomes Hawking. It’s hard to even believe that this is someone other than Hawking himself in this film. It’s a breathtakingly good performance.

But Hawking alone is only half the story. Hawking’s love interest from the very first scene is Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones), a French and Spanish literature major at Cambridge who is instantly taken by Hawking’s shyness. Their relationship is still relatively new when he’s diagnosed with the disease. Already, Jane feels that she is in love with Stephen and refuses to let the disease come in between them. They marry and have a son, followed shortly thereafter by a daughter. Eventually, Stephen’s disease becomes a burden on her that she enlists the help of her church’s choir director Jonathan Jones (Charlie Cox) who becomes a wonderful help around the house to both her and Stephen.

As good as Redmayne is in this role, Jones is his equal in all aspects. Her performance is nothing short as astounding as well. In my opinion, she has a much taller task than Redmayne because she’s asked to carry the weight of the film’s emotional aspect. Jones has the vast majority of the dialogue – especially throughout the film’s second half – which carries with it a great emotional weight. She delivers the role to the audience with the perfect amount of empathy. She’s not asking for your pity or your sympathy, but she doesn’t want you be able to feel her emotions along with her. That is no easy task, and she executes it flawlessly.

“The Theory of Everything” comes to us from Oscar winning director James Marsh, who directed the sensational documentary “Man on Wire.” Here, we see a filmmaker who knows exactly what he wants out of his cast and exactly which elements of his story he wants you to grasp. He could have easily focused the story on just the love element and left everything else as a second rate plot point. Instead, he wants us to see the elements that challenge Jane and Stephen’s marriage. At one point, Stephen says they’re just a normal family and Jane has to remind him that they’re not normal. And she’s right. A big aspect that ultimately doomed their marriage was their differing views on God. It’s a big issue, one that Marsh never loses site of that throughout the film.

“The Theory of Everything” is truly a showcase is acting perfection, if nothing else. Neither Redmayne nor Jones has been around for a terribly long time. This just shows how talented they are at such a young age. I would look for both to be mesmerizing audiences with powerful performances for a long time. This is also a testament to director Marsh as well for being able to get such realistic performances out of his two stars. Every moment of this film beautifully captured on film and flawlessly acted by Redmayne and Jones. And the final 20 minutes of are both heartbreaking and heartwarming at once.