The Theory of Everything

2014 biopic

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 18/20)

Plot: If I understood this correctly, it's about some guy named Steve who fakes a debilitating illness so that people will feel sorry for him and accept his wacky ideas about time and black holes. Then, he invents Doctor Who.

Two interesting factoids about this movie:

1) Wife Jane, whose book this is based on, gave the go-ahead to adapt it for the screen but insisted they don't show the main characters having sexual intercourse. Damn her! I can't be the only person who wanted to see that, right?

2) Stephen Hawking says that he watched some of this and actually thought that Eddie Redmayne was him in certain scenes. How good of an acting performance (or an impression) are you giving if you actually convince a real person that he's actually in the movie?

Redmayne is really good in this, but he had to grow on me a little. For the first 20 minutes or so of this movie, I couldn't stop thinking of Austin Powers and kept expecting him to say, "Oh, behave!" to David Thewlis's character. And there were times, more than likely because I'm a terrible person, where I almost laughed at inappropriate times. During the movie, I was inspired by Redmayne's performance to make an inappropriate joke--"His table manners aren't very good, are they?" and then later, while eating a bowl of soup, I may have imitated the actor imitating Stephen Hawking and then laughed and spilled a glass of tea on my pants. And even later, while on the fringe of having sexual relations with my wife (who enjoyed this movie a little more than I did), I insisted on doing it "Stephen Hawking style" which apparently both offended her and turned her off completely. I also, during a scene that I think was supposed to be kind of emotional, made a comment about how embarrassing it would be to play a game of croquet with somebody who has Lou Gehrig's Disease and be absolutely destroyed.

But seriously, Redmayne is really good here and, at least with the 2014 actor performances I've seen so far, totally deserving of that Oscar. Early on, it's all goofy grinning, body language, and clumsy chalk writing. I don't actually know if Hawking at this stage in his life was this likable and charming, but the character in this certainly is. It's amazing that anybody that intelligent can be that down to earth and easy to identify with. I wanted to sit down and have a beer and play a game of chess with the Stephen Hawking in the first part of this movie. Then, he has trouble walking normally and making his fingers work properly, and Redmayne's got to do quite a bit physically that just doesn't look comfortable. If the performance was just big grins, English charm, and physical ailments, he wouldn't have won the award. What raises Redmayne's performance is that he nails all of the emotions, and it's not in any overly-sentimental or schmaltzy way. It really is a pitch perfect performance, and you feel like you know everything you need to know about the character every step of the way, even when there aren't any words being spoken by him. I liked Felicity Jones in this, too, a character who is at least just as important as the all-star physicist. What I really like about the way this story is told is that it doesn't really shy away from the characters' flaws. Unfortunately, the movie's got its own flaws. For one, I felt that it kind of rushed through aspects of the story and left a lot of unanswered questions. There's not really enough time for much to really sink in for the audience. So while I completely bought everything Redmayne was doing as Hawking, I didn't really have a grasp on why these two fell in love, any of that black hole mumbo-jumbo, how the guy survived well past the doctor's original prognosis of two years, and what exactly happened with their relationship. Even though the acting was extraordinary, I thought the emotions were a little thin. We were asked to feel without being given much reason to feel. This was more of a sketch of the physicist's life rather than anything profound. Another problem is that this really didn't build up to much. I mean, is the point just to celebrate the life of a man who overcame extraordinary obstacles? I guess that's enough, but the movie doesn't consistently focus on that. It very safely covered the highs and lows of the Hawkings' life, a color-by-numbers Hollywood biopic, but it lacks any moments that really resonate. The score, though it's really good, is also a very safe one. I did really like the look of the film. The cinematography is terrific, and I loved the colors and splashes of light in the backgrounds. It's a good looking movie, very lush.

It's been a really long time since I fell asleep watching A Brief History of Time, a movie I watched with Lavagirl. I might have to check that out again.