'I have a slight problem with the celestial dictatorship premise.'

Rating: 8/10 (24 February 2015)

The Oscars have been awarded and Eddie Redmayne won Best Actor for his astonishingly fine performance as Stephen Hawking. For those interested in learning more about the extraordinary mind of this physicist and his contributions to science, do not expect to be enlightened. The story is more a love story adapted from his first wife Jane Hawking's book TRAVELING TO INFINITY: MY LIFE WITH STEPHEN as adapted for the screen by Anthony McCarten. Were it not for the struggle with ALS that is depicted from the onset to the present (Hawking is 72 years old at present) and the manner in which both Hawking and Jane adjusted to this deteriorating disease, this could have been another soap opera a la Nicholas Sparks, but the actors involved make it work, aided of course by the direction of James Marsh.
One summary offers the synopsis well: 'The Theory of Everything is the story of the most brilliant and celebrated physicist of our time, Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) , and Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones) the arts student he fell in love with whilst studying at Cambridge in the 1960s. Little was expected from Stephen Hawking, a bright but shiftless student of cosmology, given just two years to live following the diagnosis of a fatal illness at 21 years of age. He became galvanized, however, by the love of fellow Cambridge student, Jane Wilde, and he went on to be called the successor to Einstein, as well as a husband and father to their three children. Over the course of their marriage as Stephen's body collapsed and his academic renown soared, fault lines were exposed that tested the lineaments of their relationship and dramatically altered the course of both of their lives: Stephen remarried Elaine mason (Maxine Peake) and Jane remarried Jonathan Hellyer Jones (the very fine actor Charlie Cox). The others in the large cast who deserve mention include David Thwelis as Stephen mentor and friend, Simon McBurney as Stephen's father, and a quick little walk on by Emily Watson.
The film does not fail to touch us because of the diagnosis and the performances, but it would have been stronger had more of Hawking's contributions been shared. Grady Harp, February 15