We have all heard the robotic drawl of the world’s most famous computer-generated voice, but the person behind that voice has remained an enigma until the 2014 release of the critically acclaimed biopic The Theory of Everything. With director James Marsh at the helm, the film skillfully unloads the emotional weight and stirs sympathetic imagination within the story of wheelchair-bound astrophysicist Stephen Hawking.
This biopic houses two narratives — the life of a gifted, afflicted being, whose mind is able to traverse the boundaries of the universe but whose bodily functions wither away under the assaults of motor neurone disease; and the time transcending love story of Jane and Stephen Hawking, whose youthful innocence and deep affection are transformed into maturity and heroic drudgery, as the fatigue brought on by the illness erodes Stephen’s patience and Jane’s fierce devotion.
With time the principal motif, James Marsh turns back the clock to revive the full vigour of Hawking’s youth, only to interrupt the kinetic and airy opening soundtrack with darker and chillier musical cues, and replace the acrobatic camera movements with static and unmoving shots. But even as Marsh forces the audience to reconcile Stephen’s athletic dynamism with the slumped, immobile figure in the wheelchair, he permeates the film with a single substance — the sheer, unbridled power of optimism.
Just as optimism permeates Hawking’s story, light floods the imagery of the film. Marsh employs saturated lighting that never loses its luster, changing hues to reflect the emotions of its characters but never resigning to the monotonous grey of despair. Combined with soft focus and vivid colours, Marsh gives the film a storybook texture, as if it is a fairytale unfolding, not the heavy defeat brought on by a debilitating illness.
The luminosity of the film allows Marsh to renounce melodrama in favour of optimism to create a pathos-filled story. When Stephen stages a bitter parody of the croquet game Jane demands of him, when he turns his deteriorating flesh into an accusatory tirade against the able-bodied Jane, we recall our own attempts to lash out at the people who love us. When Stephen loses his voice and refuses to comply with Jane’s pleas for him to communicate with her through the childish redundancy of a spelling board, we understand Stephen’s desperation to keep whatever remains of his dignity.
Because how many times have we, like Stephen, felt the pull of gravity towards the black hole of despair? How many times have we, like Jane, tried to help someone whose anguish has rendered them impenetrable? How many times have we in the past year, confronted with new pressures amidst a city-wide lockdown, raised the universal dilemma of how we keep on living in times of crisis?
James Marsh gives us an answer in the form of what may be Stephen Hawking’s most well-known quote, spoken in that familiar robotic drawl: ‘While there is life, there is hope.’
In 1963, Stephen Hawking was told he had two years to live. For the next few decades, he devoted his time to his work, using his sharp wit to avoid giving in to sentimentality and self-pity. He and Jane decided to be together and to live as fully as possible for as long as they had. Whether it was Stephen whispering his thanks to Jane, or Jane gripping Stephen’s knee in solidarity and reconciliation — these small gestures told us that love and hope makes life worth living.
Stephen Hawking gave this speech in the year 2006. And perhaps it was Jane’s love, or Stephen’s own love for science, or perhaps it is simply the sheer, unbridled power of optimism that fuels the entire film, but Stephen Hawking managed to defy our every expectation.
Many expected this film to be the intellectual triumph of Hawking’s scientific discoveries, but I applaud Marsh for his fresh interpretation of the theory of everything — not as the Holy Grail of science, but as an emotional discovery. The theory of everything can be based on the mechanisms of quantum physics, but it can also explain concepts as blindingly simple as hope and love; it can be answered with Einstein’s theory of general relativity, but only through the undying strength of human endeavour. Most of all, I applaud Marsh for defying our bitter self-pity of ‘If only’, for daring mankind to respond with courage and optimism, for daring to ask instead, ‘What if?
