海角大神

The great British scientist Stephen Hawking is already such an international icon 鈥� he鈥檚 even been portrayed on 鈥淭he Simpsons鈥�! 鈥� that for him to be the subject of a movie at this point seems almost reductive. 鈥淭he Theory of Everything,鈥� starring Eddie Redmayne as Hawking and Felicity Jones as Jane Wilde, his first wife, is highly uneven, but at least it doesn鈥檛 glamorize Hawking鈥檚 life or turn it into a paean to endurance. His physical degeneration from motor neuron disease, which shut down his muscular control and ultimately rendered him unable to speak on his own, is depicted without undue pathos.聽

Diagnosed while studying for his PhD at Cambridge in the mid-1960s, he was given only two years to live. He is now 72. His ideas about space-time and black holes revolutionized modern thinking about the universe. His layman鈥檚 science book 鈥淎 Brief History of Time鈥� is perhaps the most famously unread bestseller ever.聽

In the popular imagination, the Hawking iconography is keyed to the image of this slumping, speechless man spinning paradigm-shifting cosmic theories from his wheelchair. There is an element of morbidity in this sort of hero-worship that James Marsh, who directed 鈥淭he Theory of Everything鈥� from a screenplay by Anthony McCarten, generally avoids. (Source material is Jane Hawking鈥檚 2007 memoir, 鈥淭ravelling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen,鈥� written 12 years after their 20-year marriage ended). If only the film weren鈥檛 rendered in that flavorless way endemic to biopics (especially British ones) of the famous.聽

Jones is terrific 鈥� she has a funny, offhand moment when she rues the way Stephen鈥檚 electronic voice simulator makes him sound American 鈥� but the chief reason to see the film is for Redmayne. This is the first full-scale nonmusical role he鈥檚 been handed in the movies and it ranks almost up there with Daniel Day Lewis鈥檚 performance in 鈥淢y Left Foot,鈥� though that role allowed Day Lewis far greater emotional latitude. Redmayne, like Day Lewis, is often at his most physically charged when he is the most physically confined. The early courtship scenes between Stephen and Jane, full of gawky gallantry, only emphasize Stephen鈥檚 loss when the disease hits. And yet the triumph of Redmayne鈥檚 performance is that Stephen, after he becomes incapacitated, is the same eccentric, quizzical quester that he was when he was sprinting across the Cambridge campus. He is such a brainiac that his search for a 鈥渢heory of everything鈥� 鈥� a unification of quantum physics and Einstein鈥檚 theory of relativity 鈥� overrides, triumphantly, his debility. 聽

The filmmakers, fearing perhaps that we might get snarled up in cosmological conundrums, play down the physics. I wish they hadn鈥檛; they underestimate the audience鈥檚 own avidity for scientific voyaging (as demonstrated by the success of such PBS series as 鈥淣OVA鈥� and 鈥淐osmos鈥�). 聽 聽

I also wish the filmmakers didn鈥檛 feel the need to provide a counterweight to the cosmology in the form of a running argument between Jane and Stephen about religion. (She鈥檚 Anglican; he鈥檚 an atheist.) Doesn鈥檛 the confluence of his difficult life and hers already provide an ample arena for conflict? 鈥淭he Theory of Everything鈥� doesn鈥檛 need this window dressing. It has Redmayne. Grade: B- (Rated PG-13 for some thematic elements and suggestive material.)