Film Review: The Theory of Everything

Stephen (Eddie Redmayne) devotes an hour a day to studies outside graduate physics classes with Dennis (David Thewlis) since other priorities include:

• bar-hopping with colleagues;
• bicycling along cobbled streets;
• going rowing; and
• listening to Richard Wagner’s (May 22, 1813 – February 13, 1883) non-operatic music.

He therefore emerges as a collector of charmingly obscure facts, such as the May Ball’s ultra-violet lighting enhancing Tide detergent’s fluorescent effects upon bowties and shirtfronts. He finds himself reconciling super-socializing and under-studying, by answering nine of ten questions which nobody else solves, until a number of falls gets the twenty-one-year old diagnosed in 1963 with Lou Gehrig’s (Henry Louis Gehrig, June 19, 1903 – June 2, 1941) amyotrophic lateral sclerosis disease.  

The doctor (Adam Godley) gives Stephen a life expectancy of two more years. He holds up an all too brief future marred by complete loss of communication and motor skills even though the ability to think remains. Stephen is determined to beat the odds, by:

• getting married to Westfield College student Beryl Jane Wilde (born March 29, 1944), July 16, 1965 – May 22, 1991, and home health nurse Elaine Mason, May 22, 1995 – May 22, 2006;
• having children (Robert [born May 28, 1967], Catherine Lucy [born November 2, 1970], Timothy [born April 1979]);
• incorporating mathematical physicist Roger Penrose’s (born August 8, 1931) black hole researches into a doctoral dissertation; and
• working as professor, researcher, theorist, and writer. 

Bangs, crunches, and rips; boundaries and boundlessness; bodies and particles; and holes and singularities jumpstart Stephen’s theories. Stephen keeps theorizing despite:

• being wheelchair-bound, 1969-;
• getting tracheotomized in Cambridge’s Addenbrooke’s Hospital May 22, 1985; and
• using computer engineer Walt Woltosz’s Equalizer and Words+ software-programmed speech-generators.

He lives happily despite Jane’s and choir-directing, piano-teaching Jonathan Hellyer Jones’s (born 1951), a leukemia patient’s widower, 1976-, involvement of December 1977-.

So The Theory of Everything makes Stephen Hawking’s charming genius available, through:

• Tim Bevan, Lisa Bruce, Eric Fellner, producers;
• Benoît Delhomme, cinematographer;
• Focus Features and Universal Pictures, distribution companies;
• Jinx Godfrey, film editor;
• Jóhann Jóhannson, music director;
• James Marsh, director;
• Anthony McCarten, producer/screenwriter; and
• StudioCanal and Working Title Films, production companies. 

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Eddie Redmayne received an Academy Award (Oscar) as Best Actor for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything."
87th Academy Awards, Dolby Theatre, Hollywood, Los Angeles; Sunday, February 22, 2015; image credit ABC/Craig Sjodin: Walt Disney Television, CC BY ND 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/disneyabc/16413185527/

The exquisite value of looking up: Stephen Hawking has long scanned the cosmos for answers, humor, inspiration, and questions.
Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, East of England: Lwp Kommunikáció (lwpkommunikacio), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/lwpkommunikacio/16229265925/

Stephen Hawking experiences zero gravity during flight aboard Boeing 727 aircraft owned by Zero Gravity Corporation.
Peter Diamandis (right), Zero G Corp founder, and Byron Lichtenberg (left), formerly shuttle payload specialist, now Zero G Corp president, aerially rotate Stephen Hawking, with Stephen's aide Nicola O'Brien as spotter.
image credit Jim Campbell, Aero-News Network (NASA); for release 04/26/2007: NASA Kennedy Media Archive, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Physicist_Stephen_Hawking_in_Zero_Gravity_NASA.jpg; pingnews.com, Public Domain, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/39735679@N00/475109138/

"The Theory of Everything - Official Trailer (Universal Pictures) HD" (2:46)
Uploaded Aug 6, 2014, by Universal Pictures UK to YouTube ~ URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Salz7uGp72c

Stephan Hawking's Facebook post Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2014, equated his previous evening's viewing of The Theory of Everything to "perhaps" his closest encounter with time travel.
Stephen Hawking, Eddie Redmayne; UK premiere The Theory of Everything, Odeon Leicester Square, London's West End; Dec. 9, 2014: Stephen Hawking @stephenhawking, via Facebook Dec. 10, 2014, @ https://www.facebook.com/stephenhawking/posts/745130272240739/

“Frank Hawking.” Geni.com. Los Angeles, CA: MyHeritage Ltd. Retrieved April 3, 2015.

• Available at: http://www.geni.com/people/Frank-Hawking/5213819130880079421 

Hawking, Stephen. 1993. Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays. New York, NY: Bantam Books.

Hawking, Stephen. 1998. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. New York, NY: Bantam Books.

Hawking, Stephen. 2005. A Briefer History of Time. New York, NY: Bantam Books.

Hawking, Stephen. 2011. The Dreams That Stuff Is Made Of: The Most Astounding Papers on Quantum Physics And How They Shook the Scientific World. Philadelphia, PA: Running Press.

Hawking, Stephen. 2002. The Future of Spacetime. New York, NY: Norton.

Hawking, Stephen. 2010. The Grand Design. New York, NY: Bantam Books.

Hawking, Stephen. Hawking. Public Broadcasting Service. Re-aired July 18, 2014.

Hawking, Stephen. 1996. The Illustrated A Brief History of Time. New York, NY: Bantam Books.

Hawking, Stephen. 2004. The Illustrated On the Shoulders of Giants: The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy. Philadelphia, PA: Running Press.

Hawking, Stephen W. 2009. The Illustrated Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe. Beverly Hills, CA: Phoenix Books. 

Hawking, Stephen. 2011. Into the Universe. Boulder, CO: Gaiam.

Hawking, Stephen. 2013. My Brief History. New York, NY: Bantam Books.

Hawking, Stephen (Editor). 2007. A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Writings of Albert Einstein. Philadelphia, PA: Running Press.

Hawking, Stephen. 2001. Theories of the Universe. St. Paul, MN: HighBridge Co.

Hawking, Stephen. 2002. The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe. Beverly Hills, CA: New Millennium Press.

Hawking, Stephen. 2001. The Universe in a Nutshell. New York, NY: Bantam Books.

Hawking, Stephen; and Penrose, Roger. 2010. The Nature of Space and Time. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.