SF: As far as real life bioptic movies goes this only mediocre. Yes Professor Stephen Hawking has achieved a great many things and his struggle with motor-neuron disease is amazing but I don't think this film is much more then OK. I wasn't terribly invested in any of the characters, I don't think the actors really captured the depth of emotion I'd expect to see in this type of drama. While the the film makers did manage to encapsulate England and each decade well I didn't see much else that stood out. It's nice is the best review I can give it, I wouldn't rush to the cinema for. There was nothing about Professor Hawking I didn't already know. 5/10
50Eggs: I had expected the focus of the film to be about how Stephen Hawking came up with his theories, but turns out that's really not the point here. What it is is a really fascinating insight into the life of an ALS sufferer, and it's all the more powerful for it. Watching the portrayal of the breakdown of Hawkings body is painful, but pails in comparison to the heartbreak of the subsequent breakdown of his relationship. Eddie Redmayne deserves an Oscar for this but he wont get one as all the 'acting ill' awards have already been used up in recent years by McConaughey, Firth, Hoffman and Crowe. 8.5/10
DonkeyB: I see other people are comparing it to Imitation Game and I think that is interesting, its a much better film than that, and Redmayne's performance as Hawking is extraordinarily good. I have to say that I found Felicity Jones's character bordered on the ridiculous, she is so angelic as to not seem like a real person to me and far to pouty too I thought; the film is based on her character's memoir so maybe that explains it?
There have been a lot of films this year that seem to have been set in a time period that I guess my parents would recognise very well, and I sort of recognise and feel a kind of nostalgia for. In real life the previous decade's fashions and fads don't disappear they persist, I think at least some of my warm feelings towards the film were that I recognised the type of people and the locations, they looked a bit like looking through old family photo albums of my parents before I was born and there is something familiar there. 8/10
Overall: 7.2/10
