The Theory of Everything (2014)

A platform for some 

amazing performances,

 however hardly

one of the year's best films.

With the recent release of the Academy Award nominations, the discussion as to what the true standout films of 2014 are has really heated up (spoilers, many of them received few to no nominations, and yes I do intend to release a post detailing my overall thoughts in the next day or two). One of the films to receive the most attention from the Academy was 'The Theory of Everything' by James Marsh, which received numerous nominations including Best Picture and Best Actor. Having recently seen this film, it is time to voice my opinions on it.

The most powerful thing about the film, and the element which is receiving the most attention right now, is Eddie Redmayne as Professor Stephen Hawkins, and to be frank, he is astonishingly  fantastic. This film will be remembered for launching his career and making him a superstar if nothing else, and the film is worthy of a level of praise for this performance alone. His immersion and dedication to the role is quite astonishing, and he offers several moments which will stick with me for years to come. Although it is perhaps hasty to call this the best performance of the year, and Micheal Keaton still holds that belt anyway, I will defend this film on the quality of it's main star to the hilt.

The other performances are also very good. Felicity Jones is wonderful as the female lead, making great use of her screentime to also leave a heavy impact. Although I was not as impressed by her as Redmayne, I am intrigued enough however to want to see her in more in the future, and she is a solid nomination for Best leading Actress. David Thewlis is also wonderful in a decently sized supporting role. I find him to be a grossly underrated actor and hope that his good work in this film is not overlooked. The only other actor I care to mention is Harry Lloyd, who is a delicious ham in most of his performances and I consider myself a fan. However, in this film he is restrained and successfully gives a powerful performance, in fact he is really good, borderline fantastic. The rest of the acting is solid and I do not remember any distractedly weak performances. Michael Marcus is fairly dull, however he does a passable job.

The cinematography is decent, cinematic and dynamic enough to not feel like a glorified TV movie (a fear I had before seeing the film). However, more impressive than the camerawork is the excellent lighting. There are some beautifully lit sequences and some great uses of colour in this film, helping to secure the film it's own visual identity. This is accentuated by the impressive production design and high quality soundtrack. Well, the soundtrack is only good at certain points, for the rest of the film it is dull and forgettable. I have no idea why the quality varies so much, but it is distracting to say the least.

The majority of my issues with this film stem from it being too generic and suffering from too many cliche' Oscar-bait issues. For example, the real children of Stephen Hawkins only exist as props or plot points, there to stir up emotions within it's middle-of-the-road demographic. The film is not as saccharine as it could have been, and is a bit more restrained than I had feared, however it does have it's moments. It did annoy me a lot, however I acknowledge that it comes with the territory of films like this, and I cannot expect every film to be as emotionally raw as I would like it.

In conclusion, I enjoyed this film a fair amount, but do find it somewhat overrated. The acting was excellent, it looked pretty, and was overall a compelling biopic. However, it does not do quite enough to stand out from the generic pack for me personally.

By Jack D. Phillips

A Zoom Film Review

(Sorry about this being my first review in over a week, hope you'll enjoy)