Sunday night at the home of the BMAF is generally movie night taking advantage of the rental service we belong to. My cinema visits tend to involve just about anything, although a creature feature will always be high on my list but as home movie night involves the great Mrs BMAF the film will normally be more grounded in real life and no more so than this week’s choice, the 5 Oscar nominated ‘The Theory of Everything’
This film looks at the relationship between Stephen and Jane Hawking (based on Jane’s book) and if you are concerned that it would be based on Stephen’s world renowned theories you would be wrong, this is a fantastic emotional drama.
The film opens up with Stephen (Eddie Redmayne in his Oscar-winning role) at college living the life of any normal student, going to the pub, parties even coxswain of the rowing team, we also see his genius as he excels in classes, in one instance completing his homework on the back of a bus timetable to great results and then of course he even finds time for a girlfriend Jane (Felicity Jones) soon to be his wife.
Whilst life is going so well for Stephen, at just 21 he is diagnosed with motor neurone disease and sadly given 2 years to live, he has defied those odds and is now 73 years old and has fathered 3 children and it is this journey this emotional rather than scientific part of his life the story follows and how Jane always stood by him rather than leave.
Being based on Jane’s book, she does come out the better of the 2 as she struggles with Stephen’s pride to not bring in a nurse, having to fill that role herself as well as be the parent to the children and all those household chores that need to be done, we see her own educational goals put to one side but it is also clear she loved the man, certainly evident from the 3 children she had with them, her only break comes when on the advice of her mother (Emily Mortimer), she joins her local church choir where she begins a close friendship with Jonathan (played by Charlie Cox) to an extent that he joins Jane’s family to help care for Stephen and look after the children and chores
But for another bout of illness resulting in a tracheostomy resulting in Stephen’s copyrighted robotic voice taking place, it looks as though Jane may have left him but she immediately forgets her friendship with Jonathan to step up and care leaving her own desires aside once more.
As Stephen’s needs grow, eventually Elaine (Maxine Peake) is appointed as full-time nurse and a growing admiration and friendship between the 2 develop into a romance leaving Jane to step away from the marriage of 30 years and start again with Jonathan.
Eddie’s performance is astonishing and certainly worthy of his Best Male Oscar win but in my humble opinion, Felicity should have got the Best Female one too for her performance as Jane (she lost to Julianne Moore for her performance in Still Alice) it could be argued that it should have won the Best picture other Birdman too, this is a fantastic piece of film-making and well worth a watch. We get to see what an inspiration Stephen was as he became less able yet his academical skills grew. We also see how he took it all in good humour too.
Did you think this film was Oscar worthy? What is your favourite Oscar-winning film/performance etc We’d love to know
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