THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING IS ABOUT HOPE
A biopic about the personal life of Stephen Hawking (played by Eddie Redmayne), The Theory of Everything traces his life from 1963, when he was a brilliant Cambridge University physics student until he has an audience with the queen and turns down knighthood. He impresses his professor, Dennis Sciama (David Thewlis), and charms his future wive Jane (Felicity Jones) before suddenly developing Lou Gehrig’s disease, whereupon he is given only two years to live. But with Jane’s help and his own determination, he is still alive today. The film focuses on how he copes with gradual debilitation, helped by Jane until the level of care requires a caregiver with advanced expertise, Elaine Mason (Emily Watson). He has three children with Jane, but extraordinary care provided by Elaine results in a divorce and marriage with Elaine. The pathos of relationships, not always an English “stiff upper lip,” is more than counterbalanced by humorous dialog. Directed by James Marsh, the screenplay is based on the upbeat autobiography by his first wife, Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, which explains some troubling elements of their lives together, such as her Episcopalianism and his atheism. The Theory of Everything is light on physics, but those unfamiliar with Hawking’s work will learn that ever since he was a college student he has been trying to find a way to unite two types of physics that follow very different laws—conventional physics, which applies to visible objects, and particle physics, which deals with what goes on inside electrons. At age 72, Hawking is still seeking a mathematical way to unify the two. MH