A&E
Countdown to the Academy Awards: The Theory of Everything defies convention
By Kevin Welsh ’15
February 20, 2015
As a lead-up to the Academy Awards on Feb. 22, The Spectator will be publishing a series on the nominated films. Last up is The Theory Of Everything, nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor for Eddie Redmayne and Best Actress for Felicity Jones.
If there was ever going to be a biopic full of grandeur and impossibility, it would certainly be the one covering the profound, complex and nearly tragic life of Stephen Hawking. The Theory of Everything skips the larger-than-life aspects of Hawking’s existence, and instead presents the particular and personal life of Hawking (and, just as importantly, that of his wife Jane). It is not so much the story of the master of infinities, as it is a portrait of intimacies.
The first concern most viewers will have going into The Theory of Everything is that the math and science alone will exceed their comprehension and render the whole Hawking story unintelligible. While the movie does not, and could not, possibly avoid the complexities of Hawking’s work with black holes and time, it does not require the viewer to even briefly understand the notes on the various chalkboards throughout the film. Hawking’s revelation about trying to spin back the clock on the universe gets simplified into the swirl of a coffee cup. The story rarely delves into the symbolic where one might otherwise think it would swallow itself in symbols, but this moment helps bridge the vast intellectual distance of Hawking’s mind with the very relatable moments of hislife.
Hawking’s marriage and subsequent divorce to Jane Hawking takes center stage in the film. From the very first moment of the film, when Jane and Stephen shares glances across a crowded room at Cambridge, the viewer is meant to understand that this film is about the Hawkings—not just Hawking. Their lives blossom onscreen as the film takes on the task of covering over 40 years of the Hawkings’ lives in just two hours.
However, Theory picks the riches moments to engage with. The opening of the film carefully highlights the awkward charm of Stephen and the endearing fortitude of Jane. After the charming opening, the story of Hawking’s life that we all think we know begins. In one sudden and inevitable moment Stephen’s life evolves and dissolves as he trips walking across a Cambridge quad. His face slams into the pavement and the audience holds its breath knowing that here is what we have been waiting for—the moment when his debilitating disease will start to take effect.
Stephen never falls prey to being merely a crippled genuis, though— he is a bit unfocused, often late and always resistant to dancing. Redmayne helps establish the ordinary characteristics of Hawking’s life, something that the film desperately requires since almost every audience member will have a vivid picture of Stephen Hawking as only a man in a wheelchair.
Felicity Jones counters Redmayne’s complexity with a consummate performance of Jane as a determined and passionate lover. During a tense moment with Stephen’s parents after his fall, Jane does not abandon her lover as his parents suggest, but rather informs them that she will stay with Stephen and help him, no matter what tragedy awaits the two.
At this moment in the film the overwhelming physical demand of Hawking’s condition becomes clear as well. The audience mourns his mobility as he begrudgingly plays croquet with Jane to demonstrate his deterioration. Redmayne hobbles, drags and contorts his frame and his motions across the scene. Between a perpetually stunted walking leg or later on an insistent slur, Redmayne embraces the terrible torture of Hawking’s slow loss of control. He struggles to put himself in his first wheelchair; he tries to comfort his son who watches him drag himself up the stairs; he protests at a stranger who tries to feed him dinner. As Stephen loses his voice, Redmayne is required to communicate his performance entirely through his physicality. In the end, the actor gives a performance that makes you forget he is not Stephen Hawking.
After the new dynamic has settled, the new marital difficulties eventually draws in a new character. At a choir rehearsal Jane meets Jonathan Heyller Jones, a compassionate widower who joins the family in practically everything they do. If there is any moment of the film that would truly unnerve the audience it would probably be the seamless, affable transition by Jonathan from piano teacher to family member. The most stunning revelation of this evolved family is when the Hawkings are at the beach and Jonathan lets Stephen rest his head on his chest while they stare out at the ocean. You almost beg for that literal intimacy to spark between Jonathan and Jane. Instead, those real, and eventually realized underlying emotions, evolve quietly throughout the film, and do not derail it into a poanful love traingle around a man with disabilities. Jonathan, played by Charlie Cox, provides an honest, non-intrusive third wheel to the family and makes one recognize that complexity is not only a question of the cosmos—it can be a question of character.
The Theory of Everything subtly rejects most of the assumptions the audience has coming into it. It is not a movie about abstraction; it is a movie about reality. It does not focus on Hawking; it focuses on his whole universe. His life will not be distilled down to a helpless, trapped genius; it provides love, accomplishments and imagination to an otherwise unthinkable circumstance. Redmayne and Jones create a captivating vision of life as husband and wife, not patient and nurse. The film reminds you that lives are not meaningful or profound because they wrap themselves up in tragedy or impossibility, they uncover meaning in seemingly commonplace love and difficulty. The Theory of Everything leaves the viewer with a lot of questions to consider, yet moreover they are about the incalculable intricacies of life right here and right now and not just out in space.