Stephen Hawking was a rare bird indeed. A theoretical physicist who had gained a degree of celebrity that even those not interested in physics knew his name and could recognize him. Some of that came from the release of his book A Brief History of Time, but even more had to do with his physical condition and his attitude towards it. Professor Hawking was wheelchair-bound and could only speak through the assistance of a complex computer system that broadcast his words in a robotic voice, but his sense of humor came through nevertheless, and it wasn’t unheard of to have him make appearances on entertainment shows that celebrated the sciences, lending his image and voice to properties that promoted higher learning and science. I first saw him on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and later on an episode of Futurama. Younger audiences would have seen him make numerous appearances on The Big Bang Theory, too. He was a brilliant scientist, but he was also a character that didn’t shy away from poking fun at himself and enjoying life to the best of his ability.
It wasn’t until 2014, though, when I learned more about the background of this amazing individual and how he hadn’t started life the way we all remembered him. He wasn’t born in that wheelchair after all. I had just never thought about something like that until seeing The Theory of Everything, a biographical film about his life, focusing heavily on his personal life over his professional one. A good portion of this film narrows in on the relationship between Stephen and his first wife, Jane Wilde Hawking. The film, based on the 2007 memoir Traveling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, tells this intimate story as well as the reasons their marriage finally fell apart, though the two remained friends for the remainder of his life. The memoir, and the film that came from it, chronicles the thirty years of their marriage and gives us some insight into a relationship that is both fascinating and heartbreaking.
It starts in the 1960s at the University of Cambridge, where Stephen (Eddie Redmayne) first meets Jane (Felicity Jones), a literature student. Stephen is obviously brilliant, but his friends and academics are concerned that he lacks a thesis topic, needed in order to graduate. After attending a lecture by Roger Penrose on black holes with his supervisor, Prof. Dennis Sciama (David Thewlis), Stephen speculates that these may play an integral part in the creation of the universe, choosing this as his doctoral thesis.
Not long afterwards, his muscles start to fail him, and he collapses, injuring himself. He is diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND), a condition that destroys the part of the brain that controls motor control. He’s given two years to live as there are no treatment options, and it will eventually leave him unable to move, swallow, and even breathe. Cruelly, this condition will not affect his ability to think but will eventually rob him of the ability to communicate his thoughts. Depressed, he buries himself in his work. Jane pins him down, though, and tells him she will always love him and will help take care of him until the end, something they both feel will be soon, and they soon marry.
But he defies the odds and lives far beyond the predictions. The two have several children while Stephen supports them with his work and his writings. As the years go by, his condition worsens, leading to several near-death experiences. Eventually, he falls into a coma, leaving only one choice: give him a tracheotomy and rob him of what little voice he has left or let him die. Jane elects for the surgery. Later, a solution is suggested that will allow him a voice again, albeit one that sounds robotic. But the years have started to wear Jane down, and, after nearly thirty years of taking care of Stephen, she begins to feel that she cannot deal with it anymore. With the introduction of nurse Elaine Mason (Maxine Peake), Stephen begins to form a bond with the woman, and Jane sees that he doesn’t need her as much anymore. The two agree to a divorce, leaving the relationship amicably.
It’s important for a film like this to make the subjects of the story human beings, people we can relate to. It’s all too easy to envision someone like Stephen Hawking as larger than life, brilliant, and infallible. But he was a man just like any other and had his own quirks and his own desires. He makes a bet with another man that involves the prize being a year’s subscription to Penthouse. It’s a boys-will-be-boys moment that may seem like a throwaway gag but also serves to show that, despite his condition, he was a man and had vices. Almost unnecessarily, this comes back much later in the film when Elaine finds a pornographic magazine of his and says, “I know men’s needs,” and holds it up to him to look at the pictures. It’s an unnecessary callback that is one of the few missteps of the otherwise wonderful script.
There is no denying that Eddie Redmayne personifies Professor Hawking. Eddie has a unique physicality that makes it difficult to find the right roles to fit him to, yet when he does get cast, he is almost always perfectly cast. He has consistently made interesting choices in roles, only occasionally accepting mainstream films instead of more challenging ones. Seeing him here, it is impressive just how well he embodies the very essence of Stephen Hawking. This is a challenging role, physically, requiring the actor to remain immobile for large portions of the filming while also portraying the limitations of a man with advanced MND. He also has to communicate emotions and thoughts through these limitations. This is far more difficult than it looks, and he was rewarded with the Oscar for it.
Felicity Jones is also a welcome sight playing his long-time wife, who obviously loves him but is also a woman and has her own needs. She married him, believing that he only had a few years to live. That ended up being thirty years together, and even though she does love him, she has been worn down by three decades of nearly constant care, most of it without the assistance of a trained professional. He may have been a famous physicist, but that doesn’t mean they had a lot of money, and they couldn’t afford a full-time nurse for most of that time. That, coupled with the introduction of Jonathan (Charlie Cox), a widower who helps the family take care of Stephen, and whom Jane starts to have feelings for, starts to erode the already rumbling marriage. Felicity has to convince us not to blame her but sympathize with her as she struggles with her decision to leave Stephen. She does such a good job at this that it calls into question how well we would hold up under similar circumstances.
This is a simple bio-drama about a complicated and remarkable man. Stephen Hawking was gifted in many ways and afflicted in one of the hardest ways possible, yet he clung on to his sense of humor and enjoyed his life to the best of his abilities. So much of that is captured in this film as well as his struggles with theism and atheism and rectifying to himself whether God existed and how it could be proven or disproven mathematically. He spent his whole life looking for the equation that could solve everything, including rewinding life back to the beginning of time. He never quite got there, but his life and his works have influenced the next generation of physicists to pick up where he left off and continue that work. He was also a man who loved his family and depended on them, too. All of that, and more, we experience through this film. It’s a beautiful piece of cinema that helps us, to some degree, understand the man behind all the science; to see him as the beautiful human that was behind the legend.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, and Anthony McCarten
Best Actor: Eddie Redmayne (won)
Best Actress: Felicity Jones
Best Adapted Screenplay: Anthony McCarten
Best Original Score: Jóhann Jóhannsson
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Release Date: November 26, 2014
Running Time: 123 Minutes
Rated PG-13
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Charlie Cox, Emily Watson, Simon McBurney, and David Thewlis
Directed by: James Marsh
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