Friday, July 15, 2016

REVIEW: The Theory of Everything



I had never imagined that I would pay for a love story until I saw this film. 'The Theory of Everything' is the first love story film that fascinated me. 

This is a love story--of three, based on a true story of the theoretical physicist Professor Stephen Hawking. Starring Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking, Felicity Jones as Jane Hawking, Charlie Cox as Jonathan Hellyer Jones. The story describes love in a not overly romantic way, which is very comfortable, and yet there is certainly the excitement of the new relationship. "We are not normal family", Jane says. Yes, their relationships are not simple. But their love was a light, a hope, an inspiration to me.


Acting

Their acting is brilliant. Eddie Redmayne's portrayal is very detailed, and it carries strong conviction. Professor Stephen Hawking has ALS. Eddie Redmayne realistically portrays the progress of the disease, and the character's feelings and traits by limited physicality. Felicity Jones is also a formidable actor, but the delicious part of their performance is not in individual talents or skills, that is in dialogues, face-to-face communications. Their performances resonate with each other, amplify each other. The croquet sequence, for instance, is something beyond play.


Texture of Spring

There are textures of Spring in this film. Although the story has hardships, soft bright light and colours are a pleasure to the eye, music embraces characters and makes the film glitter. 

The score filled with fruity mild sound is composed by Johann Johannsson. In the Blu-ray commentary, the director James Marsh says, "He's not a vastly experienced film composer, he's a classical in his own right. And so to have someone like that, who wasn't too spoiled by the process of constantly scoring films, that was one reason I wanted to work with him. There was a fresh voice, and the blend of instruments he uses is very unusual."


Personal Reasons

There would be no problem if we know the fact that this is a fictional film yet based on a true story. However, personally I was glad to know that all of the three and their children had attended a red carpet event for the film. Because that suggests that something like this story might have really happened. July 2015, I watched 'Mad Max: Fury Road' at a theatre and thought to myself, "It's nothing but real. It's got style--metal, the guitar, the additional fuel injection--it was extremely cool, but basically it's just normal, everyday sort of thing." I couldn't find any benefits of sitting in the seat for two hours. And I realised that 'Tough Boy' just portrayed reality, and how beautiful and precious 'Yuria Forever ユリア…永遠に' was. These two songs are themes of the Anime 'Fist of North Star 北斗の拳', which began with an idea "What if Max is Bruce Lee in 'Mad Max 2'?" Maybe I've seen enough, maybe I've seen too much. Then I concluded that I could not write on the Internet. Six months later, during the last Shōgatsu holidays, this film reminded me that there are good things in the world, not everything is Fin de Siècle, there are cat lovers who can enjoy having a mischievous cat on their lap, not everyone is cat abuser. No one can know what really happened between them, but this film became a great inspiration to me.
Talking of real, I saw the portraits of their wedding. Young Professor Hawking looks charming and happy, and real Jane is, OMG, she is so cute. She seems to have been a fine omochi-san. She is a goddess. Felicity Jones is a formidable and also beautiful actress. Felicity's Jane is a goddess. Felicity is a goddess. Well, thank you, for your patience with this very personal paragraph.


Digression: 'Inferno'

Felicity Jones appears in 'Inferno(2016)' the latest work of the Professor Robert Langdon franchise, starring Tom Hanks, directed by Ron Howard, and scored by Hans Zimmer! I love this franchise. Director Ron Howard closely tells a story and leads the audience to cinematic moment. The film will be released in theatres this Autumn in Japan. I can't wait!



The wind shines and refreshes our minds.








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