Year: 2014
Director: James Marsh
Writer: Anthony McCarten
(screenplay), Jane Hawking (book)
Stars: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity
Jones, Tom Prior
If you
thought that “The theory of everything” will concentrate on the achievements of
Stephen Hawking or the way the terrible sickness affected his mind and
scientific approach, you will be highly disappointed. As many reviewers pointed
out – it is, before anything else, a love story, which is not a bad thing in any
way, but I would personally choose the science. Knowing that the movie is a more
personal look at the story, based on the book “Travelling to Infinity: My Life
with Stephen” by Hawking’s first wife Jane, I was still a bit surprised to see
how much of it is focused on their relationship. Many parts of the film
actually feel like her biopic rather than his, which could seem a bit manipulative
and disappointing, but at least Felicity Jones’ brilliant performance made it
intriguing and more watchable than expected. Still, did we really need so much
of the Jonathan story, because the first five, ten minutes of their interaction
was pretty much enough to show us where things are going?
Most people
compare the film with the other Oscar contender “The imitation game” and
although it also had problems and was quite conventional, I enjoyed it more as
a cinematic experience. Because of the way the story in “The imitation game” is
constructed, it had a bit more tension to it and felt more quickly paced. “The
theory” seems like a much longer movie, although it’s just about 10 minutes
longer. Its advantage seems to be the screenplay, which is a bit more subtle
than the “Imitation game” one, that constantly reminded us how important is to
embrace being weird.
Just as “The
imitation game”, “The theory of everything” is not a game changer, except for
the performances, it is quite by-the-numbers romantic drama with a few cute
jokes. In the begging we witness the greatly worn out first date montage, where
you just wait for the characters to quote the next poetry verse or scientific
principle, while standing in front of beautiful backgrounds. It is also one of
a few sequences in the movie that feel like a music video. The cinematography
is just all over the place. The last “musical” sequence is probably the best
example, although the idea behind it is cute. It is also the only scene with
good music in it, although it’s not actually written for the movie, it’s a
popular instrumental piece by The Cinematic Orchestra and it felt, at least for
me, kind of cheap and inconsistent, even more as a video clip. However, I’m
sure it plays out fine, if you haven’t heard it. The rest of the score is just horribly
melodramatic, obviously manipulative and conventional to the point it makes you
feel as if you’re watching at least 60-year-old romantic Hollywood drama. It goes
up to eleven whenever something sad happens, in case you haven’t noticed and
you don’t know how to react.
Besides that
I can’t really say that the movie is bad, because it has good intentions and it’s
after all, dedicated to one of the greatest scientists alive. There are a lot
of enjoyable moments. For a person that cries a lot at movies, this just made
me tear up a few times and mostly because of the performances, which are definitely
worth it.
The best
reason to see “The theory of everything” remains the acting. And not just for
Eddie Redmayne, but for Felicity Jones that was just as amazing. In a way her
performance is the emotional center of the film, because the physical
restrictions of Hawking as portrayed by Redmayne, although absolutely greatly
done, also reduce his expressiveness. However, what really saved the movie for
me was a really small thing, that would make any film lover very happy. It’s
the “Daisy, daisy” moment – if you have to, just google it.
The movie
has 7,8 on IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2980516/?ref_=nv_sr_1
7,4 from
users and 72 from critics on MetaCritic -
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-theory-of-everything
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