'The Theory of Everything' - A masterpiece to watch!

        "You have said you do not believe in God. Do you have a philosophy of life that helps you?", asks a journalist in an over packed press conference to Prof. Stephen Hawking suffering from motor neuron disease making him confined to a wheelchair for around 4-5 decades.

            "... There should be no boundary to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. While there is LIFE, there is HOPE!!!"
answers professor through his text-to-speech translator machine and gets a long standing applause.

   
One of the most heart touching and inspiring scene from the movie 'The Theory of Everything' released in 2014 which is a biopic of Stephen Hawking and his first wife Jane Wilde. Based on Jane's autobiography 'Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen' this film swiftly glides you through personal life of the couple from early 1960s to their divorce.

Brief Plot-

    In early 1960s, Stephen Hawking (physics student) and Jane Wilde (literature student) from Cambridge University fall in love. Stephen though quite brilliant at physics and mathematics fails to decide the subject for his thesis.  After attending Roger Penrose's lecture on space-time singularity and black holes, a brilliant idea of 'black holes being part of creation of the universe' springs into his mind which leads him to finalize 'Time' as the thesis subject. One day after falling on his head, Stephen learns that he has motor neuron disease which will deteriorate his muscles, making him unable to walk, talk and breathe. Doctors tell him that his thoughts won't be impacted but eventually no one would know what they are and he has got not more than 2-3 years to live. Even after knowing all the facts about Stephen’s disease Jane decides to marry him. They marry and have a Son. In the meantime Stephen submits his thesis about Black holes and Big Bang. Jane gives birth to a second child-daughter. Over the period of time Stephen becomes world renowned classical physicist as he puts up another theory of black holes not really being black. Stephen’s deteriorating health and increasing popularity makes Jane unable to work on her own thesis and to find any time for herself. She then joins church choir where she meets Jonathan who quickly becomes a family friend. Jane and Jonathan develop feelings for each other but the fact that they keep their relationship platonic for decades. Stephen's health further deteriorates making him permanently confined to a wheelchair. He loses his speaking abilities as he has to undergo 'Tracheotomy'. Arrival of new care taking Nurse Elaine into their life makes things further complicated as Stephen and Elaine develop feelings for each other. Eventually Stephen and Jane get divorce after spending splendid 30 years with each other. Stephen marries Elaine and Jane marries Jonathan. In between, Stephen writes a bestselling book ' A Brief History of Time' which helps him not only earning money (for his treatment) but also to become famous amongst common man worldwide. The movie ends with final scene where Queen offers the Knighthood; Stephen invites Jane and their 3 children to meet the queen with him. 

            The two actors, Felicity Jones (playing Jane) and Eddie Redmayne (playing Dr. Stephen Hawking) are fabulous. Eddie is splendid in playing out 4-5 stages of physical transformations of Stephen. It's certainly not possible without keen observation and hard home work. All supporting 

actors have no shortage of talent. Bringing 1960 era of Cambridge on the screen without any artificial touch was tricky which is remarkably managed by production designer John Paul Kelly and costume designer Steven Noble. Needless to say, film's producer, writer and director Marsh, screenplay writer

Anthony McCarten, music composer Jóhann Jóhannsson were favored for lot of nominations and awards for their work. Some amount of cinematic liberty drives the film slightly away from historical accuracy. Another criticism it has received is the film does not talk much about Stephen's contribution to Physics.

My Take-

    It's not the documentary on Prof. Stephen Hawking's work in Physics; rather it’s a story of love, dedication, complex emotions, human relations and most importantly persistent and patient fight given by him to death taking disease with the help of Jane.

His words “However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. While there is LIFE, there is HOPE” keeps ringing in our ears. Indeed a ‘must watch'. 

    Here is a man confined to a wheelchair, completely disabled, speechless, permanently dependent on someone; but doing 'thought experiments' in his fantastic brain to discover 'Simple and Elegant Mathematical Equation' which explains 'Theory of Everything'. 

Hats off to you dear Professor!!!