"Out of Balance" The Theory of Everything (2014) Review

By Cliff Yung on January 2, 2015

as found on imdb.com

Stephen Hawking is an interesting man. He has gone through many hardships to become the man who he is today. Having not read the book or have had an understanding of the history of Steven Hawking, I cannot truly critic this movie without any bias. Construing experience or denying experience is the worst thing a man can do. And, with The Theory of Everything endorsed so vehemently by Stephen Hawking, I cannot say many of my critics on the movie structure to be correct.

First of all, the entire relationship developed between Stephen Hawking and his first wife, Jane Wilde, seemed a bit like a fairy tale. The many other relationships shown later in the movie appeared to be more realistic than Stephen and Jane. The whole relationship was shown in the movie as being predicated on an amazing dance that lasted five to ten minutes. The rest of the movie just showed the events that led to their eventual divorce. Well, it seemed a bit too mystical for me. Relationships that last as long as Stephen Hawking do not usually form over one amazing night as people usually need more time to get to know each other before moving on. There appears to be less of a development of Stephen Hawking’s relationship and the movie assumes that you just accept that they are just meant to be together.

However, having not read the book or having an understanding of Stephen Hawking’s history, I cannot say full heart-fully that this event was the only one and caused them to have such a long lasting relationship. Nonetheless, if the filmmaker did leave out any other scenes that could have developed their relationship more, then there is a possibility that the filmmaker is relying too much on assumption or is trying to make the moments before the illness to appear nothing more like a fairytale. But, either way, the lack of development truncated experience leaving a viewer not knowing of Stephen’s history to question the legitimacy of the content presented.

Matching photos of history and movie
as found on insidemovies.ew.com

Other odd points in this movie there are too many strange moments of isolation. Though all these points are all consolidated under the understanding that Stephen’s disorder cause him to be more or less isolated from the world around him, many of the scenes depicting this isolation are a bit jarring and a bit out of place. Particularly, at the end, the scene shows Stephen Hawking lost in thought as it is apparent that he wished he could be normal and walk again. It daydream depicts just that and out of nowhere and takes some reorientation in order to understand what is happening due to its sudden exposition without any real warning.

The final scene is also misrepresented. The impact is lacking. The scene involved both Stephen and Jane looking on to their children with a notably artistic line: “Look at what we made.” The story shown so far was focused if not completely focused on Stephen and Jane, not their children. Though it is not a stretch to consider the power of this statement, the lack of scenes interaction between the children and Jane and Stephen causes the statement to lack the impact to an anticipating audience. The interactions of the children were regulated to another mere short scene in the car. Otherwise, the children only really appeared as background noise throughout most of the movie.

The Theory of Everything is an odd movie. It tries to juggle the life of Stephen Hawking into a film and does not find a perfect balance between the divorce drama and Stephen’s other relationship. In this movie, Stephen Hawking’s universe is a little out of balance.

Trailer: The Theory of Everything

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