Upon reflection, I believe my reason for not seeing The Theory of Everything (2014) when it came out was based on prejudice.  Sadly, most people know Dr. Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne), if they have heard of him, as the guy in the wheelchair with the robot voice.  Because society does not seem to have the same compassion towards humanity in all its forms as does the Catholic Church, popular culture has often made fun of the certifiable genius.  My attitude was based on the little I knew of his thoughts on God.  The easy, and then current, summary of his ideas were that he was an atheist and dismissive of His existence.  That remains true, even with a movie such as this one that takes some liberties with historical fact, though as with so much of life there are shades of gray.  For example, and this is true, his first wife, Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones), had a deep Christian faith, being a practicing Anglican.  The cursory research I did shows that their religious differences put a bigger strain on their relationship than is portrayed, but it does offer this Catholic reviewer some great entry points into this narrative.

The narrative of The Theory of Everything is told as a long flashback, though that would not be entirely clear from the beginning.  Then again, this is a movie about a physicist, a group of scientists who posit that time is relative, so what do I know?  The real start is when, in 1962, Jane first meets Stephen.  He has just completed his studies at Oxford and has transferred to Cambridge, while the budding medieval Spanish scholar in Jane is there visiting with a friend.  While she is initially warned off from him as the weird one, they end up spending the evening talking with each other, she leaving him her phone number.  She is fascinated by his academic goal to find one mathematical equation that can unify the functioning universe.  Early on, the question of God comes up, and while she remains steadfast in her beliefs, he does not ridicule her.  I must hand it to them because it is a point of contention that I am not sure I could surmount.  Meanwhile, Stephen’s academic career takes off under the tutelage of his advisor, Dr. Dennis Sciama (David Thewlis).  After accompanying Dr. Sciama to a lecture in London, Stephen has his first breakthrough, which allows him to complete his Ph.D. thesis.  This was also the point at which I knew there were some inaccuracies in the film because he had the easiest thesis defense I have ever seen.  I wish I could have breezed through mine like that, but I digress.  He seemingly has everything going for him until one day, while walking across campus, his foot catches the pavement and he tumbles over, rendering himself unconscious.  Following a battery of tests, it is determined that he has motor neuron disease (MND).  You might know of this affliction as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease.  The doctors only give him two years to live.  While he maintains some decorum, he tries to shut Jane out of his life.  It is her perseverance that convinces him to not only venture out of his dorm room, but to marry him.  Some objections are raised, such as from their parents, but she professes to love him for however long she has with him.  They also start having children.  He manages to help as best as he can, but as his condition worsens, he is soon confined to a wheelchair.  This means that on top of caring for him and getting him around, she must also look after their children.  I should also mention that she is trying to complete her own doctoral degree.  She hints that she is feeling a little overwhelmed, but he insists that they have a normal family.  I admire his desire to make the best of it, but it is clear that they need help.  When her mother, Beryl Wilde (Emily Watson), suggests that Jane join the church choir as a way of getting some time to herself, it brings her into contact with the choirmaster, Jonathan Jones (Charlie Cox).  There is an attraction between them, but she remains faithful to Stephen while also allowing Jonathan in their home to render some assistance.  The extended family notices the closeness between Jane and Jonathan, but Stephen accepts his presence because it helps her.  Indeed, he allows her and Jonathan to take their children on a camping trip while he travels to Bourdeaux for a concert.  While in the auditorium, Stephen coughs up blood and is rushed to the hospital.  To save his life, they perform a tracheotomy on him.  In addition to no longer being able to feed himself or speak, his new condition means that he now requires in home nurse care.  This is when we meet Elaine Mason (Maxine Peake), the health professional provided to Stephen.  Slowly, Elaine replaces Jane as the one closest to Stephen.  The split comes when he is invited to travel to the United States to promote his seminal book, A Brief History of Time (1988).  Stephen informs Jane that he has asked Elaine to go with him, excluding his wife.  From there, she goes to be with Jonathan, but it is Jane who, some years later, is with Stephen when he is called to court to be knighted by Queen Elizabeth II (not pictured), an honor we are told in a postscript he refuses.  Before we get to that, though, he and Jane share a moment in the garden as they watch their children, proud of the family with which they have been blessed.

The irony of ending my synopsis of The Theory of Everything with the word “blessed” is not lost on me.  As a believer, I want Stephen to see the ultimate truth that is God.  About as close as we get to this is when Jane reads a brief excerpt from A Brief History of Time, and it discusses how if they could answers some of the fundamental questions about time that he is posing, it would get the world close to knowing the mind of God, or something to that effect.  This is not Stephen admitting to faith, but for Jane, it is a tacit admission on his part of the possibility of God.  Before continuing, this is an appropriate place to reiterate that the Catholic Church is not anti-science.  To also repeat a fact that I have stated in other reviews when this subject comes up, it was a Catholic priest, Father Georges Lemaître, who first posited the “Big Bang Theory.”  I mention these things because much of what Stephen has to say about God rests on stereotypical ideas about how Christians have constructed their beliefs.  My favorite of these is when he labels God as a “celestial dictator,” or elsewhere when he claims that a physicist cannot allow for the existence of the Divine because it muddles their calculations.  What is ironic about these statements is that what people like Stephen are trying to find is that one “originator,” for lack of a better term, which he hopes to describe in the form of an equation.  Jane does it brilliantly by loosely quoting Genesis 1:2, “and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters—”  I may be biased, but I find that a much more elegant explanation of how it all began than a set of mathematical symbols.  Still, I want to like Jane more for saying such things and sticking to her principles, but I do not love her infidelity.  At the same time, I cannot imagine how hard it must have been for her to live such a life.  Only God can sustain such an effort.

As such, it should not be surprising that the real-life Jane admitted that it was her Faith that kept her going, a fact that is not really covered in The Theory of Everything.  It is there, but it is not explored in any depth.  This is my only criticism of what is otherwise a good piece of cinema that is worthy of all the accolades it received.