Monday, February 16, 2015

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING movie review

I'll be posting late movie reviews for movies that were nominated for this year's Oscars. Roll with it and enjoy.


The Theory of Everything is a biopic focusing on the love life of the brilliant Stephen Hawking and his first wife, Jane Wilde. The film also tackles subjects like Hawking's disease and his famous theories, but it's mostly centered around the Stephen-Jane love story.


The biggest strength of this film is its amazing acting. Eddie Redmayne kills it as Stephen Hawking and Felicity Jones is almost equally as great (but way more subtle) as Jane Wilde. Redmayne essentially plays different forms of the same character throughout the movie, because of him acting out different stages of Hawking's disease, so seeing him transform himself a multitude of times throughout a couple of hours, I found it quite extraordinary. Jones really played a more tamed character. Her role wasn't flashy as Redmayne's, but that doesn't diminish her performance one bit. I felt that she brought a lot of quiet strength to her character. She also essentially carries have the movie, so that's not to be underappreciated.

The love story between them and the struggles they went to because of Hawking's illness was a truly fascinating thing to watch. I followed the story and the science in the film. It's an interesting and compelling story to translate on to film. 


Despite having good subject matter, I do think the film suffered from being too average. Other than the performances and the history, nothing really stands out or is all that memorable. It has the same look and feel of a lot of other biopics in the past couple years alone. I wouldn't call it 'predictably', but is rather generic and formulaic. It's like the film was solely dependent on the story and the performances to elevate it to new heights. 


The Theory of Everything is a pretty well-made film, with a good subject matter and great performances. However, it tries so hard to be a generic film that it limits it capability of being a great film. 



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