Honestly, it’s rare for a biopic to actually feel like a person instead of a museum exhibit. Most of them are just checklists of "and then this happened." But The Theory of Everything the movie managed to do something a bit weirder and a lot more painful. It didn’t just focus on Stephen Hawking’s black hole theories or his chair; it focused on the quiet, agonizing friction of a marriage under the weight of a literal universe.
You probably remember Eddie Redmayne’s performance. It was everywhere in 2014. He won the Oscar, and rightfully so, because he didn't just mimic Hawking’s physical decline—he captured the cheeky, stubborn spark that the real Hawking was famous for. But if you watch it again today, the thing that sticks is Felicity Jones as Jane Hawking. Without her, the movie is just a story about a sick genius. With her, it's a story about the impossible cost of love.
The Science of Being Human
People go into The Theory of Everything the movie expecting a physics lesson. You get a little bit of that. There are scenes with beer foam representing black holes and pens on a table explaining space-time. But James Marsh, the director, was clearly more interested in the "Time" part of A Brief History of Time as it applies to a human life.
Stephen was given two years to live in 1963. He lived for fifty-five more.
That’s the miracle, right? But the movie asks a harder question: What does that survival do to the people holding you up? Jane Hawking’s memoir, Travelling to Infinity, is the source material here, and it’s way more brutal than the film. While the movie glosses over some of the darker arguments and the sheer exhaustion of being a 24/7 caregiver while raising three kids, you can still see it in Jones’s eyes. She’s tired. You’re tired watching her.
How Much is Fact and How Much is Hollywood?
It's a movie. Of course, it’s going to "Hollywood" a few things.
For starters, the meeting at the Cambridge party was real, but the timeline of their romance was condensed for the screen. In reality, Stephen’s symptoms were already starting to show when they met, though he hadn't been diagnosed yet. The film also plays a bit loose with the breakup. In The Theory of Everything the movie, the separation between Stephen and Jane feels almost poetic—a mutual understanding over a sink.
The truth was a lot messier. There was a lot of tension regarding Stephen’s increasing fame and his move toward atheism, which clashed deeply with Jane’s strong Church of England faith. The movie touches on this, but it softens the blow. Then there’s Elaine Mason, the nurse who became Stephen’s second wife. The film treats her like a sudden breeze that blew in, whereas the real-life transition was fraught with years of complicated family dynamics.
The Physics of the Performance
Redmayne’s preparation was intense. He spent months visiting ALS clinics and charting the specific muscle groups Stephen would have lost control of at different stages of the film. He even had a chart to track which stage of the disease he was in for every single scene, since movies are never shot in order.
If he was filming a scene from 1965 in the morning and 1985 in the afternoon, he had to completely recalibrate his internal skeleton. It's a technical marvel. But the real magic is how he used his eyes. When you can’t move your limbs or speak clearly, your eyes have to do all the heavy lifting. He nailed that "Hawking wink"—that sense that he was always the smartest person in the room and he knew it.
Why the Cinematography Feels Like a Memory
Benoît Delhomme, the cinematographer, used a lot of soft lighting and warm filters. It feels like an old family album. This was intentional. By making the early years in Cambridge look like a golden dream, the later scenes in clinical rooms and hospital beds feel even harsher. It’s a visual representation of entropy—the idea that things naturally fall from order into disorder.
Physics! See, it’s in there.
The Controversy of the "Theory"
Critics sometimes argue that the film "sanitizes" Hawking. They aren't entirely wrong. Stephen could be incredibly difficult. He was a man with a massive ego—which you probably need if you're going to try and explain the origin of the universe—and the movie occasionally skirts around his more prickly traits.
However, the film succeeds because it doesn't try to be a documentary. It’s a "Theory of Everything" in the sense that it tries to find a unifying equation for Stephen's life: Science + Love + Disability = ?
The answer it comes up with is "Hope," which might feel cheesy to some, but it’s hard to argue with a man who defied every medical statistic on the planet.
The Impact on ALS Awareness
We can’t talk about this movie without mentioning what it did for the ALS community. Following the "Ice Bucket Challenge" era, The Theory of Everything the movie gave a face and a narrative to a disease that many people only understood as a death sentence. It showed the domesticity of disability. It showed the wheelchair as a tool of freedom, not just a cage. That’s a big deal.
What to Look for on a Rewatch
If you’re sitting down to watch it again, pay attention to the silence. Some of the best scenes have almost no dialogue. Watch the scene where Stephen tries to climb the stairs while his toddler son watches from the top. There’s no soaring orchestral music there. It’s just the sound of breathing and wood scraping. It’s devastating.
✨ Don't miss: Mommy I Mean Mommy: Why This Specific Slip of the Tongue Hijacked Modern Internet Culture
Also, look at the costumes. Steven Noble, the costume designer, did a brilliant job showing the passage of time through the loosening of Stephen’s clothes. As his body thins, his suits start to swallow him. It’s a subtle way to show his physical decline without hitting the audience over the head with it.
The Real Legacy
Stephen Hawking actually saw the movie. He famously said that at times he thought he was watching himself. He even let the filmmakers use his actual copyrighted voice for the latter half of the film because he was so impressed with the production. That’s the ultimate stamp of approval. When the man whose life you are portraying offers up his own voice, you’ve done something right.
The film reminds us that even when the universe is expanding and cooling and eventually dying, the tiny, brief moments we spend with other people are the only things that actually have weight. It’s not about the "Theory of Everything" in a physics sense; it’s about the fact that everything—every star, every atom, every person—is temporary. And that’s why it matters.
Next Steps for the Deep Dive
To truly appreciate the layers of this story, you should track down Jane Hawking’s actual book, Travelling to Infinity. It provides the grit and the specific theological debates that the movie had to trim for time. After that, watch the 2013 documentary Hawking, where the man himself narrates his life. Seeing the real-life footage alongside Redmayne’s performance highlights just how much detail went into the film's choreography. Finally, if the physics actually interested you, read A Brief History of Time, but keep a dictionary nearby—it’s "Brief" but it definitely isn't "Simple."