Stephen Hawking died yesterday. For someone who was given two years to live at the age of 21, he did all right - and had a good celebrity career too in things like Star Trek and The Simpsons.
This is a well acted film, not just by the exceptional leads, but also by Charlie Cox (who plays the choir master), David Thewlis, Emily Watson (arguably an underwritten part), Harry Lloyd (great as Stephen's college friend), Simon McBurney and Maxine Peake (her character did become Mrs Hawking).
Writer Anthony McCarten has sensibly focused on Stephen's whole life and relationships, not just on his work or illness. He also wrote Joe Wright's The Darkest Hour and Death of a Superhero (2011), Show of Hands (2008). He hails from New Zealand, began as a novelist. He was Oscar nominated (lost to Graham Moore for The Imitation Game) but won the BAFTA.
That last montage by Jinx Godfrey isn't just the whole film - it's the whole film backwards - which is a great idea and must have been a lot of fun to work on. It's overall quite an edited film - very few long takes.
It's also gorgeously shot by Benoit Delhomme, in Panavision.
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