Don't be fooled by the hype

Rating: 6/10 (2 December 2015)

How does the mind of an Oscar voter work? What do they think makes a good movie? That is a question even Stephen Hawking, one of the smartest men on the planet, couldn't answer. Every year the Academy states manipulative and boring message movies, conventional true stories and occasionally something that actually deserves to be nominated before us and claim they are the best films of the year. The Oscars are a joke. The latest evidence for that is The Theory of Everything. It's an awards bait movie so they lapped up its true story about a man who overcomes difficult circumstances. They can never resist that. Still, Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones deserved the award nominations. Jones is the emotional backbone of the movie and has to carry a lot of it, while Redmayne's performance is not only emotionally involving, it's an incredible physical performance too. Still, the true story of Stephen Hawking and his wife leaves out 2 key things: Firstly Stephen Hawking is a scientist and this has barely any science. Secondly, they sugar-coat the romance which really wasn't the fairy tale it's depicted as.
TTOE is well directed up to a point and has various emotional moments. You can't help but get caught up in it occasionally and it does move you, although how a film about a man with Motor Neurone Disease is rarely ever harrowing is a baffling mystery. It's well done technically, so what's letting it down is the writing. There's no narrative arc and there's no true inspirational message. Mainly what it's about are various clips from Hawking's life punctuated by montages. Basically, the cinematic equivalent of a family photo album. I thought this was about a scientist? It's too soft and it's too long. When a movie is nominated for so many awards I expect something that deserves them. I don't expect to have my head dunked in syrup but that's what I get. Still, I've seen Crash and various other weak Oscar films so maybe I should have known. A very average movie only lifted into the 6/10 category by its 2 leads. It's got its impressive moments but if it had won Best Picture it would have been the new Crash.
6/10