Working Title Films,
Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Charlie Cox, Emily Watson, Simon McBurney, David Thewlis, Maxine Peake, Harry Lloyd, Christian McKay
Stephen Hawkin (Eddie Redmayne) is well known as one of the worlds most brilliant scientists and theoreticians. This is his story, from his time as a youth attending school, through his diagnosis of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), and through many of the accolades and awards and discoveries he has made. This is a docu-drama, and basically a one man show about the life and times of Stephen Hawking so far, and the trials and tribulations he has had to face from this awful disease.
I was riding with my wife the other day and while we were waiting at a red light, a car turned left in front of us. The window was open, and I said to my wife, “I hate that guy!” She was surprised and asked if I knew him. My response was not at all, but I can just tell by looking at him that he’s a pompous ass. Was it was how he carried himself? Was it the way he was dressed? Was it the look on his face? Or did he remind me of someone else I don’t like. I don’t think so, but I could just tell. She thought it was funny and said if I got to know the guy, we might be best friends. Have you ever had that experience where you dislike someone instantly without knowing anything about them at all? It’s a weird thing. Now, I have to say that this is the way I felt about Eddie Redmayne. I don’t know him, I haven’t seen him in person, but when he showed up in Les Miserables, I took an instant disliking to him without even knowing him. When I saw him at the Oscars and making the rounds of the talk shows and other awards shows I felt even more instant dislike for the poor guy. I’m sorry Eddie, but I can’t help it. That overwhelming feeling actually affects my feeling about this film. I have nothing against Stephen Hawking personally. I am not completely in awe of him. I realize he’s a genius and probably much smarter than I’ll ever be, but I also realize he could be quite wrong on a lot of his opinions. He’s probably not, but he could be. When I was 19, they convinced me that Paul McCartney was dead. I was totally convinced because there was a LOT of evidence. I felt that, at least, if he wasn’t, that the Beatles went through a lot of trouble to convince us that he was. As you grow older you realize that prognosticating after the fact is fairly easy to prove anything, and people want to make sense out of the randomness of this world, and if you tie a bunch of theories together, you can pretty much convince yourself that you’re right. Sometimes you are, and the more evidence the better, but sometimes you’re just blowing smoke. I am not saying Stephen Hawking is just blowing smoke, but he could be wrong. But there is no doubt that his life has been extremely challenging and his story is quite astonishing. The facts of his life experiences make a good story. So why did I just not like this one so much? I can’t really put my finger on it, I just was not blown away by this story. I feel like they missed the mark. My instinctual dislike for poor Eddie aside, I felt a little like the whole thing was a bit pompous and sort of stuck up. The feeling I got through the whole thing was like someone was trying to tell me they’re better than me, smarter than me, and superior to me, and if I didn’t accept that I was just stupid. This is probably all in my own mind, but I couldn’t get past it. I wasn’t comfortable through the whole film. I know it got a lot of praise and a lot of awards, but for me, I just didn’t feel like I enjoyed it very much. I have to give it three stars because in my mind I realize it’s not a bad film, and I did go to wikipedia after the film and read up on the real Stephen Hawking and to find out how much of the story was true. It turns out that they did a pretty decent job on telling the true story. But I would not be interested in watching it again.
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