more like Theory of Nothing

Rating: 4/10 (14 February 2015)

I was hugely disappointed by this film after all the hype.
First niggle was seeing Jane Hawking played by a model actress. That made her attraction to the awkward and frankly not very charming young version of Stephen Hawking difficult to believe.
A major problem throughout was over use of soft focus, it made the whole thing feel very unreal.
It hardly touched on Stephen's work at all. All it seemed to say was he got praise for one idea and then got praise for another idea that contradicted his first. Hardly portraying the work of a genius, which Stephen undoubtedly is.
So OK it's supposed to be a love story then. What love story? I felt no real chemistry between the two leads at all.
Then there is the chocolate box representation of middle England and the stereotypical characters in it, again all in soft blinking focus.
As for Eddie Redmayne's performance it was OK but I did not find it at all engaging. It was a good physical impression of Stephen Hawking but where was the passion, where was the angst? Sadly missing for me.
One final niggle, there is a scene towards the end where Stephen is supposed to be conversing with Jane and it is absolutely clear that there is no way he could be creating the text on his computer in the speed required to produce the conversation we see.
I watched it with my wife on Valentine's day eve and she was equally unimpressed.
How this film can be considered for any Oscars is a total mystery to me. Whiplash is so so so so much better.