The Theory of Everything

The Theory of Everything

‘While there is life there is hope’ is one of the axial phrases around which has been built this film about the life of the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, a phrase that says a lot about the direction of the script. The interest Hawking derives not so much physical and cosmological theories, and their disease. Paradoxically, the most appropriate to appreciate this film are the same people who applauded her time in ‘The Sea Inside’. Remember, that we recounting the process that led to Ramón Sampedro (Javier Bardem) to opt for euthanasia. Hawking is at odds with Sampedro. Where one has lost hope, the other clings to life. The difference between the two is that Hawking had a passion, science, while Sampedro showed passionate about a life that he could no longer live fully.

‘The Theory of Everything’ is to some extent a biopic. Based on the book by Hawking's first wife, she has especially the love story of the couple. Boy seeking girl, boy meets girl, disease joins boy and girl, prolonging it separates boys and girls. She was worried that the script was also and above all a justification for the link with Hawking.

The characteristics of the disease causes the background of the film is a real drama. You can understand the reactions when the first wife agrees to marry an already diagnosed ‘terminally ill’, considering that ‘till death do us part’ has for him expiration date: two years. However, various circumstances contribute to prolonging until Hawking's life today, something for which she seemed unprepared. So, rather than a biographical account of Hawking or about their life together, the film is shifting the focus of the narrative to the first woman.

But why should we be interested in Hawking's life? I'm not sure that's because he decided to survive where Ramon Sampedro said enough. Einstein is interesting not because of its relationship with Mileva Marić or Loewhental Elsa, but for his contribution to theoretical physics. Bad business if we more interested womanizing what scientists that their contributions to the advancement of science.

That said, I recommend watching this neat, nice, linear movie and that is a real psychological study of the characters. James Marsh is a seasoned filmmaker, with a dozen titles, all of acceptable quality and well received by critics. There is in him a sober director who knows how to tell stories and keep the viewer's attention. We we threw at fault after his last tape, which came to us in 2011 ('Project Nim', prepared as documentary about a chimpanzee raised as a human being, against the background of animal abuse) and 2012 ('double agent' with Clive Owen and Gillian Anderson, the Scullyde X-Files) agent who had left us a good taste. The film about marriage Hawking shows his mastery of many different genres.

At the moment, ‘The Theory of Everything' has been collecting awards and nominations, including several for "best film" (BAFTA Awards, Awards Critics Choice Awards). Eddie Redmayne is probably the best actor who could embody the anterior and posterior Hawking to his illness. Embroiders a role and not particularly easy at the time of writing, his work has already been rewarded with a Golden Globe, a prelude to what may be his big Oscar night. Eddie Redmayne Oscar for Best Actor in 2015 for ‘The Theory of Everything’.   

The main problem with the film is some abuse of the naive-happy candy covering the biography of one of the sharpest minds of our time with a pinkish patina not please everyone. After all, the importance and impact of Hawking's theories (an attempt to establish the origin of the Cosmos) exceeds the interest you may have your personal life, let alone the psychological reactions of his wife.

Marsh spent several years working in the film and was aware of the problem so he chose to enter into the dialogue some ideas developed by the theoretical physicist. In recent times, this kind of thinking has become the source of a film with pretensions. We have seen recently in the theoretical speculations of 'Interstellar' (2014), the also heard in small pills during episodes of 'True Detective' (2014), as we saw in the field of mathematics 'Fermat's Room' (2007), try also reappears in 'The Imitation Game' (2014), another biopic Oscar winner Alan Turing, the genius of the exact sciences.

It seems as if certain films that were not in the mood, for mere amusement, or festival of special effects, tended to resort to sophisticated messages and higher soliloquies flights to assert their ambitions. It not always as happens with the movie we occupied the public can follow the presentation of complex doctrines, nor understand what the hell speak on the screen. Try disseminate modern physics is no bargain. But it is possible that these dialogues, sometimes difficult to understand, in some young awaken interest in these issues and desire to deepen. And this is a lot.

Some viewers undoubtedly would have preferred a film about the mental and imaginative Hawking process followed to develop his theories. But we must recognize that the language of film, except in the documentary genre, lends little to the theoretical exposure. If it was facing a biopic about the approach chosen by Hawking Marsh it was the only possible.

Hawking has not only appeared in several documentaries about his work, but also accepted a great and hilarious cameo in the fifth season of 'The Big Bang Theory', playing himself and giving opposite Sheldon Cooper, star of the series, he seems to have a healthy sense of humor and keeps his will to live. So, welcome is this film that shows us that the great scientists have their human side. The emotional and sentimental, the pink and soft that at times distilled tape, are nothing more than the vaseline that aids digestion of the film. We would not have been surprised if the producer had been Disney.