"My Left Foot" meets "A Beautiful Mind"

Rating: 8/10 (13 December 2014)

When we first see the hero is Stephan Hawking's well-deserved biopic we see him happily riding his bike carefree with his friend. The ability to do this is short lived as we all know his physical condition will slowly deteriorate. Nonetheless he maintains his will to live for although his motor skills go away, he will he have the ability to think and do his best work as a physicist and arguably the smartest human being alive.
Eddie Redmayne is absolutely superb and Oscar-worthy as Hawking. Even before he's given the tragic news, his body language suggests he has this disease. As his speech grows more intelligible, I was reminded of Daniel Day Lewis's Oscar winning performance as Christy Brown in "My Left Foot". In the last half of the movie when he can't talk, he provides enough emotion in his facial expressions for the audience to feel for him.
With all the brilliant work Hawkings has done in his life, the main focus is the love story with his first wife Jane (well acted by Felicity Jones). It starts with a Meet Cute at a party where it's revealed they have not much in common. He's a secular atheist, she's a member of the Church of England. However what they do both have is an interest of the creation of everything. This is shown in a party scene while as they're looking at the stars, she quotes Genesis.
In describing Hawking's thought process the movie uses what I thought were pretty clever visuals (including one shot with his coffee) though they could be too obvious for other people. He is also always changing his mind and challenging himself. His college thesis sets out to prove an existence of a being (like God) that created time while he later argues against it. It is implied that his deteriorating condition could be the reason for the change of heart.
As his story with his wife and family are shown, it at times feels pretty conventional. For example we see footage of his family growing up like they were home movies. Jane is a character who loves her husband and tries to cope with his condition while maintaining their marriage. Her character is not dissimilar to the one Jennifer Connelly played in "A Beautiful Mind" who faced a similar struggle with her brilliant but medically unstable husband.
There are a few interesting things about Hawking I didn't know like the fact that he's British. There's a humorous scene when he first gets his computerized voice machine and they note: "It's American."
What happens to their relationship and Hawking's life as a physicist and best-selling author I will not spoil for you, since as a true story I'm sure it is fairly common knowledge. Though the film often feels conventional and derivative, it is still a brilliant acted, well shot and directed, inspirational film and will even make you think a little bit afterwards. What exactly is the theory of everything?