Review: The Theory of Everything
A scarecrow of a fellow sporting thick-rimmed glasses, Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) is a graduate student at Cambridge well-liked by his fellow students, well-admired by his professors, and deeply enthralled by the origins of the universe. His heart has been captured by Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones), a timid beauty whose love of the arts and belief in God mark her as his intellectual and philosophical opposite.
Innocuous incidents - knocking over a cup of tea, stumbling as he runs up the stairs, not quite grasping a fallen pen - foreshadow something grim and irreversible: motor neuron disease, a progressive neurological disorder that destroys the cells in the brain that control central muscle activity such as speaking, walking and swallowing. Stephen is given no more than two years to live.
Though Stephen and his family warn Jane of the hardships to come - "The weight of science is against you," Stephen's father (Simon McBurney) gently tells her. "This is not a fight. This is going to be a very heavy defeat." - Jane is resolved to stand by Stephen and love him in the time they have left. They marry, have children, have more time than expected. Yet, as anyone familiar with their story knows, this is no happily ever after.
His physical decline takes a toll on Jane, who bears the burden of caring for her husband and children with little help from friends and family. Stephen himself tells her that everything is well when she voices her need for assistance. With Jane managing his personal care, he can focus on developing his work on the birth of the universe and pursuing the "one single, elegant equation to explain everything."
The Theory of Everything meets its many challenges with grace and skill. Many would argue that the science gets short shrift but remember this is not a documentary on Hawking's work but rather a drama focusing on Jane's life with him. Director James Marsh (Man on Wire and Project Nim) and screenwriter Anthony McCarten (Death of a Superhero) do a commendable job of keeping Jane in equal focus. Too often stories of troubled genuises and the women at their side are inclined to render the latter mere satellites, but the film depicts the difficulties of being a long-suffering wife with sensitivity and care.
Where it falters a touch is conveying the tribulations of living with a man whose life is his work and whose selfishness seems to know no bounds. The English comedian Lee Evans recently appeared on The Jonathan Ross Show where he surprised the host and the audience by announcing his current tour as his last. He wanted to focus on his wife who had put up with decades of his non-stop work and touring. "I'm not an easy man to live with," Evans admitted. Though we get glimpses here and there of Hawking's ego and obstinacy, they are not enough to explain the eventual dissolution of their marriage. Jane herself, in her memoir Music to Move the Stars and in a 2004 interview with The Guardian to promote the televised biopic starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Hawking, cited the encroaching fame, their opposing beliefs and Hawking's increasing remoteness as major factors. As she revealed to a journalist just before their marriage came to an end, her role was no longer as his wife but rather "telling him that he was not God."
The Theory of Everything overlooks the anger and bitterness of her first memoir and takes her more forgiving follow-up Traveling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen as its basis. This is understandable - one wants to maintain the beautiful and touching love story they have developed for the bulk of the film - but it lends a la vie en rose perspective on the later stages of their marriage.
Redmayne's performance can't be denied - he embodies all the outward signs of the disease without falling into exaggeration and utilises his eyes to express Hawking's frustration as more means of communication are taken from him. For all the remarkability of his portrayal, however, it is Jones who excels in an arguably more difficult role. She may look the typical English rose, but there's steel in her spine. There's a wonderful scene where she visits him after learning of the diagnosis. She convinces him to play a game of croquet with her and she watches him - the contortions of his body already in evidence; weighing the measure of what's to come against the level of her love. You see the decision as it's made in her eyes and you realise that her will to defy the odds is as formidable as his.
The Theory of Everything
Directed by: James Marsh
Written by: Anthony McCarten; based on Jane Wilde Hawking's Traveling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Charlie Cox, Harold Lloyd, David Thewlis, Simon McBurney, Emily Watson
