Hollow Hypothesis

Rating: 1/10 (9 December 2014)

Our subject, Stephen Hawking, was on the verge of discovering THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, but the director obviously didn't realize before a montage sequence shows two people getting married, and then their babies growing into toddlers before our very eyes, we should know the characters just a bit.
The romantic setup at Cambridge University, bathed in an opulent nostalgic glow of academia, does look wonderful. And yet the meeting of Stephen and his first wife Jean is so quick and easy, it's not one bit interesting.
As an actor and probably the next Oscar winner, Eddie Redmayne transforms from a quirky, ambitious student into the tortured, wheelchair-bound genius, but the performance shouldn't be compared to Daniel Day Lewis in MY LEFT FOOT since this particular vehicle seems more like an actor's workshop than a fleshed-out biopic with a genuine character arc.
It's as if the scriptwriter wanted Hawking's controversial philosophies on Atheism, through the prism of discovering a powerful Black Hole, to have a cinematic soundboard – with an intellectual date movie buried within the stardust. Yet after tedious bouts of soap opera diatribes we never really know the man behind the suffering and brilliance, and how he managed to bridge his personal life with his breakthrough in science, and beyond.
Like an actual Black Hole, this particular THEORY has an intriguing design with absolutely nothing inside.