Good but could be better

Rating: 7/10 (6 January 2019)

A heart wrenching tale that while beautiful is not what it should be. To say I have conflicting feelings about this movie would be an understatement.
It is a good movie with brilliant acting. I still believe that Bradley Cooper deserved the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role Oscar for his part as Chris Kyle in "American Sniper" but Eddie Redmayne performance as Stephan Hawking in this film is a close second in my book and I can understand how others would chose Redmayne over Cooper. Felitcity Jones as usual had a great performance with a great range of emotions. On the ten star scale I give it a seven. I do not regret watching it and I would recommend it to others and potentially watch it again. However, despite the positives I cannot help but think of the negatives.
I have two major issues with this movie. One the color grading is horrendous. I believe it was intentional and is meant to be part of the visual story telling. Sadly, it fails at providing this as a story element. The color grading ends up just distracting from the film. Blown out shots, overly grainy scenes, unbalanced and unrealistic color pallets will take you out of the movie and remind you are looking at a screen. My second problem is the focus of the story. There was a clear lack of focus on the breakthrough science of Hawkings. It was more focused on the building and failing of his relationship with wife and eventual ex-wife Jane. This alters the film from a celebration of a man's genius to a focus of the betray and betraying that he experiences in his life. I do not believe this was the best use of the time. I wanted more science and less drama.
But as I said before I don't regret watching it. You should try watching it yourself. My issues might not bother you like they did me.