Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones make The Theory of Everything worth seeing for the marriage alone. James Marsh’s drama is touching and often funny, though it is too polite about the pressures that marriage places on Jane Hawking.
James Marsh makes the right decision in treating The Theory of Everything chiefly as a story about a marriage. The science matters, but the daily business of loving someone with a progressive illness gives the film its weight. We recommend it for Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, who make the affection convincing and the strain difficult to dismiss. The familiar biographical shape and a reluctance to be unkind limit what the film can tell us about either person.
Eddie Redmayne’s Stephen Hawking retains humour and charm as movement becomes harder. The performance makes room for the pleasure he takes in other people, so that we never feel we are being asked merely to admire an actor’s control of his body. That matters in a drama about disability, where physical technique can attract so much attention that character gets forgotten. His humour makes him good company, and gives the romance something more persuasive than admiration to work with.
Felicity Jones gives Jane Hawking the attention that a more reverential film might have reserved for her husband. Her affection takes effort, and the performance allows us to see how much being supportive can require without making her endlessly patient. We were moved by the tiredness in her attentive face, because she makes caring look like work even when she is being kind. The chemistry between the leads is strong enough for their difficulties to hurt, and neither seems to be waiting politely while the other acts.
Benoît Delhomme photographs the couple with a warmth that helps us believe the attraction, although the polish sometimes makes their difficulties look too presentable. John Paul Kelly’s production design shares that tidiness: everything looks carefully chosen, and we miss the sense that living together might leave a mess. Jóhann Jóhannsson’s music encourages tenderness, occasionally more insistently than the performances need. These are skilful contributions, but James Marsh could have let the film look and sound less reassuring.
Anthony McCarten’s screenplay is less comfortable with the unpleasant parts of devotion. It acknowledges the strain, then too often moves on before either person has to spend much time being difficult or unreasonable. Jinx Godfrey’s editing keeps the account moving, but the pace contributes to that feeling of being ushered past an uncomfortable conversation. A biographical romance does need to choose what to leave out; here we wanted less ground covered and more time with the couple.
The modest place given to theoretical physics is not, in itself, a fault. A marriage need not become a lecture simply because one spouse is a scientist. Yet the film gives us too little sense of why the work absorbs him, which weakens our understanding of the man whose working life the marriage has to accommodate. This is a familiar problem in biographical dramas: we are given enough to recognise someone’s importance without getting much opportunity to share their excitement about the work.
There is enough humour here to prevent the suffering from becoming oppressive, and enough tenderness to make the romance worth following. Its politeness is frustrating because the actors seem capable of handling a less flattering account. They still give us two people worth spending time with. Choose it for a thoughtful, accessible romantic drama; anyone hoping for a substantial account of the physics should make other plans.
