Amazing story rendered in an outstanding film

Rating: Null/10 (7 January 2015)

Over the past two and a half decades, I have read three books by theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking and a biography of him, as well as attending his famous 1995 lecture at the Royal Albert Hall in London (the last physicist to fill that venue was Albert Einstein in 1933). Furthermore I was very aware of the buzz around this film and especially the plaudits for the performance by Eddie Redmayne in the central role. So there was no way I was going to miss this movie and I was not disappointed. Redmayne is simply brilliant and totally inhabits the role, but I was also impressed by newcomer Felicity Jones as Hawking's first wife Jane.
At one point in the film, Jane briefly explains the nature of the theory of everything: an attempt to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics. But like CMB - the cosmic radiation that is regarded as proof of the big bang theory - the science is in the background. In the foreground is the relationship between Stephen and Jane and indeed the film is based on her 1999 memoir, "Music To Move The Stars" which was republished in a revised version in 2007 as "Travelling To Infinity, My Life with Stephen".
Life married to a self-centred genius would never have been easy but, when one adds the impact of progressive motor neurone disease plus the fame that went with the former and the support staff that went with the latter, it is a testimony to Jane's humanity that the marriage lasted so long, although the later years were characterised by an open relationship on both sides. The towering performance by Redmayne, movingly displaying the physical deterioration over time, plus family scenes shot as if with a home movie camera, makes the film look more like a documentary than an artistic creation. Indeed brilliant British director James Marsh has more experience with documentaries ("Man On Wire") than films ("Shadow Dancer") and this skill has paid off enormously with this splendid film that is bound to win many awards.
The most moving lines are when Stephen and Jane decide to part and when they are joined by their three children at Buckingham Palace and the final scenes - a flashback through time - offers a clever and apposite conclusion to the film but not the story (Hawking - given two years to live when first diagnosed with MND - is amazingly now 72).