The Theory of Everything

The Theory of Everything (12A)

UK 2014  123 mins  Dir: James Marsh  Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Charlie Cox, Emily Watson, Simon McBurney, David Thewlis, Christian McKay, Maxine Peake

Best known for his superlative documentaries Man on Wire and Project Nim, James Marsh is equally at home with drama – notably Shadow Dancer and his under-appreciated slice of steamy southern gothic from 2006, The King. The surprise about The Theory of Everything is that it’s so formulaic. Sleek, tasteful and superbly acted it may be, but there’s something ironic about a rigidly conventional biopic centred on a man whose insight revolutionised the way we understand space and time. Only in the final straight does Marsh unleash the temporal trickery.

While the title may lead the unwary to anticipate an exploration of Hawking’s famously difficult scientific theories, these are addressed in only the most cursory manner, with much recourse to that hoary old standby of the boffin scratching complex formulae on his blackboard while wearing expression of intense concentration. That’s because the story is told largely from the perspective of Hawking’s first wife Jane – specifically, the second and more forgiving version of her memoir. It begins in Heritage Movie Cambridge, where socially awkward cosmology postgrad Stephen Hawking (Redmayne) meets medieval poetry student Jane Wilde (Jones) at a party. They quickly become lovers despite their many differences, not least Jane’s Christian faith and Stephen’s atheism (“I have a slight trouble with the whole celestial dictator premise,” he confesses diffidently). The impending next plot point is signalled by his occasional clumsiness and stumbling before he winds up in hospital diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and given just two years to live. Concerned that his brain might be affected, he’s told, chillingly, that although his thoughts won’t change, “eventually no one will know what they are.” Jane draws on her inner strength and decides to marry him anyway, knowing full well that she faces a difficult immediate future and probable early widowhood.

There are few rough edges in this latest entry in the increasingly crowded inspirational disability biopic genre, which goes heavy on the soft-focus fake home movie footage but deliberately fudges the circumstances that led to the end of the Hawkings’ marriage. More frustratingly, having set up the clash between Hawking’s vision of a godless universe (despite that oft-misinterpreted line about knowing the ‘mind of god’) and his wife’s religious faith, it’s a shame that Marsh and screenwriter Anthony McCarten don’t make more of his professional drive to dismantle the core of her supernatural beliefs. 

But in purely dramatic terms, it’s hard to go wrong with the cruelty of a degenerative disease ravaging the body of a man whose brilliant mind dances at the outer limits of cosmological understanding. Redmayne delivers a wholly convincing performance that is certain to necessitate a trip to IKEA to purchase a new trophy cabinet, while Jones refuses to be overshadowed in her less showy role, finally delivering on those gushing, premature “star of tomorrow” profiles that were accompanied by fluffy shite like Chalet Girl. There’s not much for the quality supporting performers to do, their ranks including David Thewlis as Hawking’s mentor Dennis Sciama, Christian McKay as fellow physicist Roger Penrose, and Emily Watson, languishing in yet another thankless mum role. But we do get to see Hawking delighting his children by pretending to be a Dalek, and that counts greatly in the film’s favour.