The Hand and Eye Behind "The Theory of Everything"

Stephen and Jane Hawking on their wedding day, in film (left) and real life (middle and right). [Credit: Jane Hawking; Liam Daniel/Focus Features]The Theory of Everything--the long-awaited biopic about physicist Stephen Hawking, opening this Friday--is admirable for the things that it does not do. There are no scenes in which glowing equations hover around Hawking's head. There are no swirling camera angles intended to convey a genius's convulsive thought process. There are no floating grids attempting to depict space and time, and not a single CGI black hole to be seen. Simply by negating those cliches, the movie is a revelation. But praising The Theory of Everything for its omissions does it a disservice. The film achieves far more than sidestepping the common pitfalls of beautiful-mind storytelling; it takes a full-on, no-safety-net dramatic plunge. It presents Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne, every bit as good as you've heard) as a cocky, witty, prickly, passionate, arrogant, lovable, and--yes--prodigiously intelligent character. It retraces his romance with Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones, equally impressive in a quieter and more controlled role) in exquisite and sometimes painful detail. Most remarkably, the movie worms its way into the philosophical heart of science, exploring unflinchingly what it means to think like a open-minded physicist.