Saturday, February 13, 2016

The Theory of Everything (PG-13; 2014)


MoViews:  The Theory of Everything;   Rating: PG-13   Genres:  Drama             Language: English
Overall BAGEO Rating:  E (Excellent)
Direction: James Marsh;  Screenplay:  Anthony McCarten.;   Cinematography: Benoit Delhomme
Story:  Jane Hawking; based on her book ‘Travelling to Infinity; My life with Stephen”.
Key Actors: Eddie Redmayne (Stephen Hawking), Felicity Jones (Jane Hawking), Charlie Cox (Jonathan Jones)
Summary:   This movie has been made based on the book “ Travelling to Infinity:  My life with Stephen” by Jane Hawking. An excellent movie with realistic portraying of the life of the celebrated scientist Stephen Hawking who is handicapped due to Lou Gehrig’s disease also known as  motor neutron disease.    Due to this disease, he starts loosing control of his muscles and thereby the movements of most of his body parts.  The movie initially shows him as a young boy with some bodily defect, in the way he looks and talk and the movie very gradually slowly takes the viewer through the different stages  of his disease without putting us into major shocks.  Along with that however, it also moves the story along very nicely with his education, love with Jane and the world recognizing him as an amazing scientist.  A wonderful movie to watch, especially for teen kids to learn about this  amazing scientist  and understand how inspite of his unthinkable disease and handicap,  he has been able to achieve his passion and ambition.   Towards the end of the movie,  he  is shown addressing an audience where he says his famous quote  “There should be no boundaries to human endeavor” and “Where there is life, there is hope”!
Acting:  Exceptional acting as Stephen Hawking by Eddie Redmayne.  It seems Eddie met with the actual Stephen Hawking and observed his walk, talk, actions etc. and has been very successful in portraying it.  Felicity Jones also has done a wonderful acting as Jane Hawking and going through the emotional ups and downs.
Screenplay & Direction: The movie well crafted by James Marsh.  It is smooth flowing with no surprises nor any visible goof ups,  though IMDB has listed some interesting trivia that shows some mismatches.  However for a normal movie viewer,  none of those are conspicuous.
Other interesting points: Looks like the movie has been filmed in the actual Oxford and Cambridge campuses ( I may be wrong) which shows how the life is for kids. Stephen’s parents are shown a few times in the movie, but from a story point of view, they do not seem to be very involved with his life, even after he is severely handicapped due to the disease.  Stephen starts as an atheist at the start and does not go to church saying he has a slight problem with the whole celestial dictator premise.  As a scientist, he even discards presence of GOD and proclaims that the universe has no beginning. However towards the end,  he has not been able to find one single formula for the existence of universe and that I felt he indirectly agrees to the principle of GOD in the universe.
Overall: A must watch movie for teens and above.   BAGEO Rating: E.

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