My Father-In-Law was a very clever fellow and he didn’t like A Brief History of Time. He found Stephen Hawking to be a bit full of himself and his pet theories. Geniuses.
As The Theory of Everything opens, we find a young Stephen Hawking having a hard time coming up with a subject for his doctoral dissertation. He’s already a gnome like character with his glasses forever at an odd angle and a strange look on his face. We also see that Stephen is a bit full of himself and his pet theories. These opening scenes are mainly about Stephen and a pretty girl he meets. They fall in love. Then he finds out that he has two years to live. She says she doesn’t care, and they get married.
Many years pass. Stephen and his wife have three children. His wife falls in love with another man. He falls in love with another woman. He writes a best selling book on Time. He gets to meet the Queen. He doesn’t die after two years.
The Theory of Everything was an interesting movie. Lots of heartbreaking things happen. There are a lot of scenes of Stephen becoming weaker and more broken. One especially sad moment sees Stephen sitting at the dinner table unable to eat while all those around him easily balance food and pour wine. Big moments in his life include getting an electric wheelchair and getting his now familiar computer generated voice. He has a bit of fun impersonation famous robots. One funny bit was when his wife complained that the voice machine had an American accent. Funny that I never really noticed that.
It was a fairly depressing bit of business. And they didn’t even mention his guest appearances on The Big Bang Theory.
I liked the look of the film, great sets and costumes. There were several moments when I felt like I was at Hogwarts, but that’s because of the actors and the robes and such.
And it was a pretty damned depressing. Oh, there are a few moments here and there when Hawking has an insight, but most of the story deals with Stephen being a stubborn moron who refuses to see doctors. Of course, the source material is a book written by Stephen’s first wife, so it’s more domestic and less scientific.
The Theory of Everything was a good movie, but it was a little on the long side.
