This is your film if you said "Stephen Who?"

Rating: 3/10 (27 November 2019)

I had such high hopes for this film, yet somehow managed a few years without watching it. Definitely not worth the buildup.
I wanted to see more about his mind, his theories... how he worked, where he struggled, whom he interacted with, etc... Yes, I'm a physicist and I realize that a lot of it would have to be simplified for lay people, but to resort to Hollywood tropes of genius, fancy impressive equations on a chalkboard. It was like nails on a ... well, you know. The content of his life and work took a backstage to such a ridiculously diluted version of the relationships that it made me wonder why in the galaxy did they bother.
Don't come for the bulk of the screen time (about Jane Hawking) or you'll be disappointed, too. The film reduced her massive care-taking role to one scene of exhaustion. The rest of the relationship - and others - are diluted to the point of misrepresentation if not near-fiction. Every emotional conflict follows the script of "now weep with love in your eyes." There's no dimension, no nuance, just caricatured human tolerance.
I gave it 3 stars instead of fewer because Theory was a watchable movie while I did cardio in the gym. (Don't let that fool you into thinking I did 2 hours of cardio; it was easy to walk away from and start again the next day.) The acting itself wasn't painful and if I could pretend it was a fiction it was decent. I think I also clung onto hope it could get better. Sadly, the juice never came out of the squeeze.
This is Hollywood loving itself, using famous people to do it... good looking famous people, of course...