Renting at the Reels: A Redmayne success

By: Kaitlyn McKay, Columnist

“The Theory of Everything” follows the relationship between world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) and his first wife, Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones), as Hawking’s body deteriorates due Lou Gehrig’s disease, from the time they meet in 1963 to the 1990s. “The Theory of Everything” is a largely a romance film, focusing on Stephen and Jane first, and Stephen’s successes second.

Stephen and Jane are completely perfect — a Gary Stu and a Mary Sue. The only thing “flawed” that either character does is fall in love with other people late into their thirty-year long marriage, ultimately leading to a divorce. There are hints that Jane is frustrated taking care of her three children plus her husband, but it is not developed enough for her to suddenly fall in love with someone else. “The Theory of Everything” does the worst thing a biopic can do, and puts its main characters on a pedestal, not interested going into the real, gritty details of their lives, because that would put the main characters in a bad light. Nothing makes this clearer than toward the end of the film, where Stephen and Jane end their marriage on a civilized note, where in real life, their marriage ended horribly.

Stephen Hawking could do no wrong in this film. Everyone knows that he was a genius, but the film was not interested in showing any other side to him that that. All of this is odd, considering that the movie was based on a memoir by Jane Wilde about her marriage to Stephen.

Eddie Redmayne does give a great physical performance as Stephen Hawking, and while it is impressive, it was still what was expected and did not push any boundaries. Acting wise, everyone was just fine.

The only reason for anyone to see “The Theory of Everything” is to see for themselves how good Eddie Redmayne was to win the Oscar for Best Actor. Other than that, there’s nothing that is worth seeing — or remembering — about “The Theory of Everything.”