Simply stunning

Rating: 10/10 (18 January 2015)

I'm not usually a fan of biopic films - most of them are painfully boring and dull, as mostly the subject matter beyond the public persona, are also pretty normal, boring and dull. Then there's Stephen Hawking.
I skimmed a mixed bag of other reviews on IMDb before writing this, and it's clear that some people were disappointed that they didn't really "learn anything" from the movie - mostly with respect to Hawking's career in Physics. They've obviously missed the fact that this film was based on the book written by Jane Hawking; "Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen" - this is why it's Physics light and mostly all about their life together.
It's seems to be a pretty honest tale as Jane doesn't come out of the story looking all that brilliant in the end. Bottom line, in the end, she has an affair with their live-in help Jonathan, ends up leaving Stephen for him, despite pushing for that life with Stephen at the time when the disease first takes hold whilst at university - whether this was because she genuinely believed that it would only be about "two years of struggle" before he died, we just don't know. It also reflects poorly on some of the Christian values that present as part of the backdrop of the film and story. It's also unclear whether this actually had Hawking's blessing - it sort of alludes to it in the film, but remains a little ambiguous for me.
For me, this is an epic tale of struggle against adversity - quite how Stephen has managed to make it into his 70's now, and also manage to develop the lifetime theories that he has produced whilst only just barely being able to speak, swallow, move his eyes and so on as his bodies functions shut down, and whilst almost dying of pneumonia in the 80's is quite unbelievable - what an impressive human being Stephen Hawking is. It makes you wonder about the widespread whinging of most human beings in the Western World, who really don't have much to moan about but do so, quite loudly, regardless.
It was so easy to watch Eddy Redmayne's performance and absolutely believe that you were watching Hawking himself as he travelled through key stages in his life. Redmayne's performance is utterly stunning - he's absolutely nailed the appalling difficulties of a motor neuron disease sufferer - with dignity and great respect. During the last 1/2 to 1/3 of the film, Redmayne barely utters any words, but delivers the performance with the most subtle and powerful of facial gestures, with are mostly the limit of Hawking's physiology at that stage of his life.
With all due respect to Keaton for Birdman (which was somewhat boring incidentally) and Cumberbatch for The Imitation Game - Redmayne's is one of the best performances I've ever seen in my life, in any year - if he doesn't win the Oscar/BAFTA for best actor, it would simply be wrong.
I hope that they can eventually create a second biopic with the same cast in the not too distant future, so that they can focus much more on the academic achievements and theorem of Hawking and less of the relationship side to complete the story and so that Hawking's impressive achievements can be completely conveyed.