The Theory of Everything: Stephen Hawking and the physics of love

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As legendary physicist Stephen Hawking, the young British actor Eddie Redmayne gives a predictably impressive performance in The Theory of Everything, bending his body to match the heartbreaking progress of ALS, the cruel disease that Hawking has lived with since his 20s. What makes the performance so special is its emotional valence: Redmayne and director James Marsh never lose sight of Hawking’s humanity, even as the man’s physical self rapidly fails him.

One could argue, however, that the more challenging task here is the one given to Felicity Jones as Jane, Hawking’s university girlfriend and eventual wife. Pulled into the scientist’s high-achieving orbit early on, Jane loyally stands by her man, even when that means shrinking away from her own life. Not unlike her remarkable performance in last year’s The Invisible Woman (in which she portrayed the paramour of another iconic British genius, Charles Dickens), Jones has a way of keeping things bottled up while letting just the hint of inner pain dance across her face. She and Redmayne both are giving internalized performances: Stephen’s illness prevents him from expressing himself, and Jane’s code keeps her from doing so.

The Theory of Everything is, in many senses, Jane’s story. (It’s based on her book Traveling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen.) That’s certainly a narrative convenience: For most of us, it’s easier to relate to a pious but likable, slightly out-of-her-element nonscientist than it is to relate to one of the greatest minds of our time. Hawking has to contend with the physics of time and the cosmos; Jane has to contend with the physics of a complicated marriage. A devout Anglican, she struggles to reconcile her own beliefs with Hawking’s ongoing work on a universe that has no room for God. In the film, that dilemma is echoed by Jane’s fondness for Jonathan (Charlie Cox), a church choir director who comes to help in the Hawking home and for whom she develops a low-boil attraction.

Such a story could easily have become the stuff of potboilers, but to Marsh and screenwriter Anthony McCarten’s credit, the film is evenhanded and generous. Its characters come across as real people dealing with a horrid set of circumstances. At times, The Theory of Everything does fall into the usual biopic traps. There are applause scenes galore, which come with the territory when you’re making a movie about an acclaimed scientist, let alone one who is famously afflicted.

There’s also little science here, which feels like a missed opportunity. But if The Theory of Everything fails to tear a rip in the cinematic space-time continuum, as an intimate drama about two people struggling with a life they never expected, it has real power.