Not exactly a Stephen Hawking movie

Rating: 7/10 (24 February 2015)

To sort things out from the beginning, if you're looking for a movie for SH the Physicist, this is not one. This is a movie for SH the man and partly the Physicist. It's a well-made movie, focusing on his relationship with his first wife with whom they have three children.
It's more or less a film about a relationship where one of the two partners is seriously ill and the other tries to support and be there. And then again, it's not completely about that. It seems to me that the intention was to portray this, but with SH being who he is, it could not be just a movie about his relationship. They had to have some background about him and his work. But then, incorporating this in the film, it inevitably took away time and depth from the depiction of the relationship and all its ups and downs.
The result for me is indeed a touching movie with all the elements there, or at least most of them, and with an amazing role being performed in the best way possible. Apart from that, it seems that the movie remains superficial around the topics of the relationship, leaving out many elements of the cruel reality that could serve the purpose of the movie. We never got to find out how they coped, we never got to find out about the actual and real problems of the couple and the children. They are being heavily implied but not tackled with directly. Instead of that, the movie just shows the picture of Professor SH running around on his chair with the children hanging from it.
I also missed the participation of the respective families in this or the declaration of their absence. His father and mother seem really distant from everything else other than some family gatherings, which looks odd when we do not have any indication of them having some tension or problems in their relationship. I mean, if your child goes through that, you are there the whole time, something we never saw in the movie.
Don't let me be misunderstood, I really loved the movie. But, I would expect something more from it, given that it does have a really interesting and powerful story in its core. My problem is that in a way the director or maybe the script writer, chose the mainstream/in between path, of creating a film that shows a little bit of everything to capture diverse audiences, whereas this film should be about the relationship in all its depth and width...
I would highly recommend watching it! And if a comparison could be made with the Imitation Game, which kind of resembles it in a way, I would give thumbs up to the Imitation Game any day of the week.