The Theory of Everything

Grade: B

The Theory of Everything, the new film about Stephen Hawking, is interesting, satisfying, and respectful, while not exactly breaking any new ground for the biopic genre. You make a movie about somebody, show only what you want your audience to see, and when you end it is arbitrary and inconsequential, as long as you conclude the film with captions on the screen that say what ends up happening to everybody. And voila, you have your typical biopic. That’s not to say that TToE disappoints. It makes a nice impression. The cinematography, with its frequent use of unobtrusive “passive” colors, gives the movie a nice “period” feel, along with the perpetual soft focus of the camera. (It makes me chuckle that Focus Features is the name of this film’s distributor.) They like to give out award nominations to actors who have played real-life people, as well as actors who have played characters who have some sort of significant ailment. Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking, has both of these things going for him. He puts on a winning performance, however the best person in the movie – who I hope doesn’t get overlooked – is Felicity Jones as his long-suffering girlfriend-cum-wife Jane. She is captivating, heartbreaking, and inspirational, and there ought to be a mathematical explanation for how she carries, and ultimately walks away with the movie. Grade: B