If you have heard that they made a movie about that “brainy guy” but you can’t remember the title when you go to the multiplex, I’ll give you a hint: It’s not called “Hawkingjay.”
“The Theory of Everything” is a bold title for a movie that doesn’t seem very concerned with “Everything,” or anything, except the potential to pull at the heartstrings of people who don’t enjoy thinking. This is Oscar bait in a very obvious form – and with exception of the film’s excellent star, Eddie Redmayne, I hope Academy voters don’t go for it.
Redmayne is a rising star with versatility and talent. He’s now been in two movies I didn’t enjoy (the other being “Les Miserables”), where I had to acknowledge his helpful contribution. In this film, he portrays Dr. Stephen Hawking as he transitions from an energetic Oxford student to a physically helpless figure, stricken by ALS. He’s at risk of losing the ability to express his brilliant perspective on the universe, and possibly losing his life as well.
This performance is very strong, but it does not save the movie from its by-the-numbers banality, and self-conscious stylistic choices, typically found in TV movies. This is a movie about a person who deserves our fascination. While it sadly chooses to focus on his marriage, it fails to be an interesting love story.
Felicity Jones as his wife, Jane Hawking (the author of the book on which this movie is based), is a beautiful face to be sure, but I still have trouble taking her seriously. Her range is limited and I often have trouble reading the emotions she’s attempting to convey. Jane commits to a relationship, which she knows will be taxing and when we arrive at the point where the challenges are draining her, I wanted a deeper understanding of what she felt and thought. Something was missing.
This is often the case with biopics. They’re a balancing act in imposing drama through speculation while trying not to offend any living people connected to its subject. Films about advanced professions are also difficult because you want the audience to believe the credibility of the characters without being alienating. Stories about having some triumph over a debilitating affliction are delicate, as well. I think showing the interior of a long-term relationship is still the most difficult thing to believably convey. This movie is trying to do all of these things, and it doesn’t have the right level of ambition to pull any of them off with the real investment they require.
The screenplay by Anthony McCarten is an embarrassing collection of generic exchanges and scientific discussions, utilizing layman’s terms, which seem more similar to other movies about academia and relationships, than the reality of them.
I recall Roger Ebert’s review for the Hawking-based documentary “A Brief History of Time,” by Errol Morris to express disappointment for its lack of involvement in Hawking’s ideas. If that was his problem then, I can’t imagine him liking this biopic – if he’d lived to see it – even though he would have sympathized deeply with its portrayal of a great mind without a body or voice to use. Actually, I got way more out of the Ebert-based documentary, “Life Itself” earlier this year, in its balance between showing a man’s life of productive film criticism and marriage as he is about to meet his end.
“The Theory of Everything” is directed by James Marsh, whose film, “Man on Wire” proves him to be a gifted documentarian. I just don’t think he’s suited for drama. Some of his shots of Stephen and Jane, during the blossoming of their romance, are trying laughably hard to be cinematically romantic. I wanted to think of this film as an admirable failure, until its terrible final scene, which brings back characters from the film’s beginning and Redmayne is the only one with convincing old-age makeup. This was followed by a fantasy sequence, which I found to be so tasteless and stupid that it put me in a bad mood for the rest of the night.
It’s the mind of Hawking that is treated like scenery and not the subject of the story. This movie can’t wrap its head around the big ideas with which it dabbles. I went in thinking it seemed like a bad idea, and exited the theater, baffled at just how little intelligence went into its making.
Bennett Duckworth is a film fanatic who lives in Louisville and goes to see a movie in the theater at least once a week. He has kept a movie review blog since September of 2011 with the mission of writing about every new release he sees, as well as new trends in filmmaking and classic films he loves. You can read more of his reviews at www.bennettduckworth.blogspot.com.