Directed by: James Marsh
Staring: Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones
With a great feel for its period English setting, Cambridge in the 60s at the outset, it tells the story of physicist Stephen Hawking. Redmayne’s is an astonishing, genuinely visceral, Oscar winning, performance. He inhabits rather than imitates Hawking through his physical decline from motor neurone disease, and in his marriage to Jane, played by Felicity Jones, also a brilliant actor. A realistic relationship, with a bedrock of respect and affection is captured in a film to leave you reeling but cheered, too. It’s about battling love, as well as illness.
A universal story, extracted from a unique one.