Eddie Redmayne fails to save simplistic and formulaic biopic

Rating: 7/10 (31 January 2015)

At the heart of The Theory of Everything is a standout performance by Eddie Redmayne. While Redmayne has been rightfully nominated for an Oscar, and gives audiences plenty to marvel at and weep about, ultimately this film is too simplistic and formulaic a vehicle to justify him winning Best Actor. Running over two hours, the film is slow-paced, sentimental and sugar coated throughout. The action centres on Stephen Hawking's marriage with Jane Wilde, and was based on Wilde's book. This is probably the central weakness of the film. Hawking's affliction with motor neurone disease, and Wilde's heroic efforts to hold Hawking and his family together, provide much of the dramatic interest. However, we are never privileged with a revealing account of the marriage and developments later in Hawking's personal life are left unexplained. You get the sense that the writers are simply not willing to share these details, and the film's direction is either too hamstrung or unimaginative to suggest what might be going on in other ways.