“The Theory of Everything”
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| Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones in "The Theory of Everything" |
The similarities between James Marsh’s Stephen Hawking bio-pic, The Theory of Everything, and Morten Tyldum’s Alan Turing bio-pic, The Imitation Game (reviewed on the blog), have already been pointed out and commented on far too many times, and are any way obvious to all readers and viewers. They shall not be listed here. What I shall say is that they’re so similar, I had to check a number of times to make sure that The Theory of Everything is not a Weinstein Company production, which it very much resembles (and which The Imitation Game is), and I can quote a paragraph from my review of that film here, and it’d be just as apt:
“Viewers … know what to expect –
a staid and ingratiating account of an extraordinary individual going through
tough times, but managing to grandstand their … emotions before a satisfying
end is reached. Sets, costumes and diction are meticulously crafted to fit the
period … and only conventional camera and editing techniques are used: we
wouldn’t want those getting in the way of the quiet heroism of whichever
protagonist is being honoured this time. Admiration is our watchword.”