Sorry But It's Not As Good As Many People Claim

Rating: 6/10 (1 April 2015)

In a recent review of a Christian propaganda film I did state that there's a danger of elevating Professor Stephen Hawking as the greatest scientist in the history of humanity . According to other scientists this simply isn't true , he's not on a par with the likes of Albert Einstein or Ernest Rutherford or many scientists of the 20th Century . He is of course what is known as a celebrity scientist who along with the abrasive love him or hate him biologist Richard Dawkins and uber-geek boy Brian Cox someone who can make the intricate , mind boggling and often incomprehensible topic of science understandable and fascinating for a mainstream layman audience . Much of Hawking's celebrity comes from the very sad fact that he has spent the majority of his life trapped inside a useless body due to motor neuron disease . He is - and I hope no one picks me up wrong - the good human form of the pop culture sci-fi view of the alien genius villain who is all brain and no body such as The Mekon and Davros .I'm saying this because I've got the instinctive feeling that THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING might be getting rewarded for the subject rather than the content and is a film I found difficult to take to
The story starts in 1963 with young able bodied intellectual future scientist Stephen Hawking meeting young literature student Jane Wilde at Cambridge University . I've no idea what the young Jane Wilde looked like in reality but played by the beautiful Felicity Jones she is an absolute stunner and by far the best moments of the film are in the early stages when romance blooms between this unlikely couple . Unfortunately adversity is on the horizon and unfortunately for the audience we then get the Oscar baiting type aspect that the film has its eyes on
Director James Marsh made a rather reserved drama about the troubles called SHADOW DANCER which while treating the subject matter with non sensationalist respect brought a rather slow paced and poetic feel to the film which I wasn't too keen on and I found myself wishing he'd done something a bit more risky and dynamic with this film which has that look of a light hearted one off drama you see on Sunday nights on ITV . Despite the absolute liberties taken with facts at least in A BEAUTIFUL MIND director Ron Howard did bring a great visual panache to a rather talkative film . Here however there's little in the way of cinematic feel and revolves around love in the face of adversity . Ask yourself this: If THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING wasn't about real characters in a film based on a true life story would it have picked up so many rewards or nominations ? I rest my case