Get Reel | Film review: The Theory of Everything - a poignant portrait
Stephen Hawking is one of those rare scientists — along with Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci — whose name is recognised by the general public. Even those who have not read A Brief History of Time, his bestselling book which seeks to make black holes and the Big Bang understandable, often know who he is.
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones
Director: James Marsh
Category: IIA
Stephen Hawking is one of those rare scientists — along with Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci — whose name is recognised by the general public. Even those who have not read A Brief History of Time, his bestselling book which seeks to make black holes and the Big Bang understandable, often know who he is.
Yet, beyond the fact that he's a genius who has a disease that has left him almost entirely paralysed, little is known about the man.
This biopic by James Marsh, whose Man on Wire (2008) won the best documentary feature Oscar, should help change this. Inspired by Hawking's first wife Jane Wilde's memoir, Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, it begins in 1963, when Hawking was an able-bodied Cambridge University PhD student — able to tear around town on his bicycle, cox a college boat crew, and chat up women at parties.
At one such social gathering, Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) meets romance languages student Wilde (Felicity Jones). Although they are poles apart in academic interests and religious beliefs (she's Church of England, he's an atheist), they both come away from the encounter with a definite interest in the other.
