Astrophysical Soap

Rating: 7/10 (24 December 2018)

I would not for one moment take anything away from Eddie Redmayne's excellent performance as Stephen Hawking, or, for that matter Felicity Jones' fine performance as Hawking's first wife, Jane. But the movie presents their romance and struggle more as a well-mounted soap opera than as a biopic of one of the world's foremost scientists. It sometimes comes off as a cheesy disease-of-the-week movie tempered by a rather tawdry love triangle, or quadrangle ((Stephen:Jane:Choirmaster:Penthouse) If you want any knowledge of the professional life and works of Stephen Hawking, you will not find it here. And that is a shame. Because his professional life and work are infinitely more interesting than that of his occasional interest in eyeing a Penthouse magazine or her struggle with her libido. Medmayne deserved his Oscar. But the script let both him and Hawking (and the viewer) down.