Two riveting lead performances that have attracted well deserved Golden Globe nominations*

Rating: Null/10 (13 December 2014)

A well-made biopic can recreate on the screen the intensity the protagonist has gone through at a certain moment of his or her life. But no motion picture can recreate the protagonist's frustration and agony of going through hardships day after day, year after year. This should be kept in perspective when watching the film.
After Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking has to be the next best-known name in the realm of modern physics. The term "modern physics" is carefully chosen here over relativity, sub-atomic particle physics, unifying theories, and a half-dozen other appealing choices. Those of us that have read a few for-layman science books (best of which are Isaac Asimov's) may be tempted to throw around terms such as event horizon, singularity, quantum theory, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, etc etc. But just like Jon Snow, we know nothing and less. Rather than being completely overwhelmed by Hawking's stupendous scientific achievement, it would be better to approach "The theory of everything" as a human story.
Note first that this film is fully endorsed by both Stephen (Eddie Redmayne) and Jane Hawking (Felicity Jones) who have remained friends after years of striving to maintain a failing marriage. In the end, they each found a different soul-mate but that doesn't diminish the beauty of the relationship they have shared. But as I had mentioned, one should not lose the perspective of the difficulties they face consistently, which are only depicted in brief scenes in the film. Always looking for a rational explanation of things, I think the fact that Jane is not professionally trained to look after a paralyzed patient could be the most serious problem. This becomes quite evident when we witness how professionally trained Elaine Mason, who eventually becomes Hawking's second wife, (Maxine Peake) successfully helps to him use the "color spelling board" after his loses his speaking faculties and before the voice generating device comes to his salvation.
Peake, whom one critic describes as "charismatic", does indeed bring to the screen such cheerful confidence that lifts the spirit of the audience. Her sort of counterpart, Jonathan Hellyer Jones (music teacher and recent widower when he first met Jane) is also well portrayed, by Charlie Cox, who convincingly traces how this unassuming, gentle man evolves from Jane's platonic soul-mate to good family friend and eventually to an almost surrogate-father figure to the family. Two other solid supports come from Emma Watson's maddeningly brief appearance as Jane's mother and David Thewlis (who played Michael Aris, i.e. Aung San Suu Kyi's husband opposite Michelle Yeoh in "The lady") portraying Hawking's ever-present and reliable mentor Dennis Sciama. It is, of course, Redmayne and Jones that make this film soar.
Watching Redmayne here will block out his two earlier quite respectable performances: reporter Colin Clark in "My week with Marilyn" and Marius "Les Miserables". Redmayne's resemblance here to Hawking is outright uncanny. And then, we have seen very good performances of paralyzed characters, most notable of which are Mathieu Amalric in "The diving bell and the butterfly" and Javier Bardem in "The sea inside". Against these two masters, Redmayne's performance does not suffer. Further, what he is portraying is not just a paralyzed man. It is a genius trapped in an immobile body. On top of that, it is a genius with a mischievous sense of humor and rich emotions. By comparison, Jane Wilde (then Hawking) is ordinary but that very ordinariness is a huge challenge and I have to keep coming back to my point that what the filmmakers can show on screen is only a flicker of a moment from a lifetime. Clever screenwriters and directors can do a lot within the strict limitation of screen time. In that department, unfortunately, this film is only passing grade. If you think of the clumsy and contriving scene of Jane coming to see Jonathan after leaving her husband, you'll see what I mean. So a lot is up to the actors. How do you deliver a Jane that is frustrated to exhaustion, still deeply in love, still wanting to persevere and at the same time feeling a little guilty, all that and more? Jones nails her character with pitch-perfect performance.
* Hopefully, by next March, I can update "Golden Globe nominations" to read "Oscar wins"