The Theoryof EverythingEddie Redmayne, FelicityJones, Charlie Cox Directed by James Marsh 3.5/3.5
BLOW PAST THE NOTION that biopics about genius have to be stuffy, pious, by-the-book endurance tests. Not always. The Theory of Everything gives us the real, breathing, sweating, bleeding world that British theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking calls his own. Challenged by a progressive neurological disease that robs him of movement and speech, Hawking nonetheless carries on, his mind racing to solve the mysteries of the universe.
I expected director James Marsh to cue the violins and hard-sell the triumph over adversity. Instead, the emotionally charged, surprisingly cheeky Theory of Everything gazes unflinchingly at the untidy, ornery humanity of a thinking, feeling, sexual being caged by his own body. Hawking is a role that demands miracles of…