The Sex Lives Of Physicists-Steven J. Hawking’s The Theory Of Everything

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

The Theory of Everything, starring Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, 2014     

No question one the striking and permanent questions that humankind has ponders since the beginning of existence, put many different ways depending of what is known, is how the universe was formed. In the old days that was a “no-brainer” because of course God did the deed and that ended the question, perhaps. But when humankind put aside that part of the question the guys and gals who were still interested in how it was formed had a field day, and are still doing so waiting for the next big idea to take root. For now though people, or rather professional observers, physicists and astronomers, are hovering around the black hole theory and the rest of us are going along. And the film under review, The Theory of Everything, the bio-pic rather semi-bio-pic of the extraordinary physicist Steven J. Hawking based on a memoir by his ex-wife Jane goes a long way to acknowledging his efforts at pitching that theory to the scientific community.    

Of course that is not the only part the story that gets played out here since, except for nerds and geeks and their hangers-on, a story about a guy and a scientific theory would be a “snorer.” What makes this film’s plotline extraordinary is that Hawking (played by Eddie Redmayne) plugged on while suffering the debilitating effects of motor neuron disease which almost took his life and did take his voice and some other functions. So even if you are a little weak on your late unlamented attempts at understanding high school physics you can still appreciate the human struggle against all odds to survive that this ordeal thrown his way. (He was not expected to live more than a couple of years back in the 1960s when he developed the disease but as of 2015 he is still with us, hats off.)  

Better yet this film avoids the “snorer” problem that Hollywood dreads and which follows films about science guys by putting plenty of romance, even if awkward and geeky romance, in the story-line. Everybody can get into the boy-girl thing (or all the contemporary other relationship combinations which produce a romance) and wonder, star-gazing wonder if you like, how Hawking and his wife, Jane (played by Felicity Jones) got through the whole thing as well as they did, and for as long as they did. Wonder too if we are missing something in that star-gazing when we undercover stuff about the sex lives of those geeky physicists in this film. See this one.