Director: James Marsh
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Charlie Cox, and Emily Watson
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Runtime: 123 mins. Reviewed in Jan 2015

| |

Rating notes: Mild themes)

This is a British biographical drama, that is competing for five Academy Awards (yet to be decided) in the 2015 Oscar race. It tells the story of a famous theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking (played by Eddie Redmayne), who, as a Cambridge University student, fell in love with fellow student, Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones). The film is adapted loosely from the Memoir, “Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen Hawking”, written by Jane Wilde Hawking, who is now his ex-wife. Stephen Hawking has married twice.

Both Stephen and Jane studied for their doctorates in the 1960s, he in the field of Relativity and Cosmology, and she in the field of Medieval Spanish Poetry. While going to a lecture on “Black Holes” with his mentor-supervisor, Stephen notices that he is impeded in walking. Later, while walking on campus, his muscles give out entirely and he falls heavily to the ground. His doctor tells him (at age 21) that he has Motor Neurone Disease and that every muscle in his body will soon weaken and decline, his brain will remain active, and he has only two years to live.

Helping Stephen work through his depression at the news, Jane declares her love for Stephen and they decide to marry. Over time, they have three children together. Stephen’s disease and the difficulties it poses take its toll on both of them and they drift apart. The movie’s final scene shows Jane, now married to another man (Jonathan Jones, played by Charlie Cox), reunited with Stephen in friendship, while Stephen receives an award from the Queen for his scientific achievements.

The transformation of Eddie Redmayne into Stephen Hawking is astounding. As the motor illness takes over, Redmayne captures the progression of the disease amazingly well. Hawking’s mind stays alert and sharp, while his body runs down in terrible ways. The film becomes the depiction of a genius at work, who overcomes the ravages to his body to achieve his personal goals.

The film emphasises heavily the emotional ups and downs of Stephen’s marriage to Jane, and the acting of Felicity Jones as Jane is excellent. But when Jane and Stephen separate, we know less than we might about what exactly went wrong in the relationship. Stephen grows in affection for another woman who helped nurse him, and Jane becomes attracted to Jonathan who helped her and her family to cope. The movie highlights brilliantly, however, the complexities of a human relationship that blossomed against all expectations, and eventually succumbed to stress.

A variety of camera shots gives the film a particularly interesting visual look. Stylistically and artistically, the film’s photography complements creatively the central acting performances of Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, rather than distracts from them in any way. And excellent work is provided briefly in a cameo role by the ever-dependable Emily Watson as Jane’s mother, Beryl Wilde.

The film entertains most as a moving love story that has many tender moments. One is when Stephen asks Jane to dance with him, and another is when, on the verge of separation, Jane tells Stephen tearfully that “I have loved you and done my best”. The lead players are directed compellingly by Marsh, but romance is the film’s main concern. Hawking’s scientific accomplishments are world-shattering, but the film stays with the relationship between the film’s two main characters.

It is a special tribute to this film that it deals so movingly with the complexities of an extraordinary union of mind and body between two highly intelligent people – one a genius, and the other a young woman of spirit with unbelievable courage. We are exposed to Hawking’s challenging breakthroughs in Science but the real power of the movie comes through Hawking’s determination to overcome the limitations of his illness with Jane’s loving support. The film’s potential to educate is immense. It teaches what it is possible to achieve, and the meaning of personal sacrifice.

This is a movie that is a powerful testimony to the necessity for treating illness, be it physical or mental, by focusing on what one is capable of, rather than on what others assume cannot be done. The path to scientific achievement that Stephen Hawking travelled was full of capabilities that he realised in remarkable ways.

Five decades on from when he was told he would die in two years, Hawking currently continues his research at Cambridge University’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.