Fantastic Beasts - The Secrets Of Dumbledore

 

Dumb Or Dumbledore

Fantastic Beasts - 
The Secrets Of Dumbledore
USA 2022
Directed by David Yates
Warner Brothers Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Spoilers ahead. And please keep in mind I wrote this one some time ago... before real life events moved on.

Fantastic Beasts - The Secrets Of Dumbledore is the third in the series of Harry Potter prequels written for the screen by the writer of the original novels, J. K. Rowling. Now, I absolutely loved the first film in this series (more so than the Harry Potter movies... I’m not exactly a fan of Potter and his fellow tykes) which I reviewed here but I thought the second movie, Fantastic Beasts - The Crimes Of Grindelwald (reviewed here), was a bit of a let down and felt like a stepping stone of a movie. This third installment in what I’m hoping will be running for the number of films originally planned, certainly works a heck of a lot better than the previous movie but, even though it’s way more entertaining, this one is a bit of a mess, to be honest. 

Once more, Grindelwald has changed his visage because of, presumably, Warner Brothers mixing up art and PR with certainly bizarre allegations made against Johnny Depp*. Why they think those audience members strangely not in the Depp camp would be unable to suspend disbelief like anyone else and not get the art mixed with the people behind it is beyond me but, whatever, he’s been replaced with Mads Mikkelsen... who, to be fair, always makes for a good bad guy. 

Among those back from the previous films are Eddie Redmayne as Newt, Dan Fogler as Jacob, Alison Sudol as Queenie and Jude Law as young Professor Dumbledore. Then there’s Ezra Miller, who seems to be on a real bender in real life with various criminal charges brought against him. Warner Brothers’ seem to be reacting to this in the same way as they have with Johnny Depp and they keep postponing The Flash*. However, he’s not got as much presence in this movie as he did in previous installments and, at the end of this one, there’s the open ended opportunity for his character to just dissappear from the films from now on (should Warner Brothers’ do the right thing and make some more of them). Since the script is credited as being written by J. K Rowling and Steve Kloves... but ‘based on’ a screenplay by J. K. Rowling, I can only assume some ‘PR idiots running scared’ studio politics forced a rewrite of the material to make some alterations to Rowling’s original intent? 

And then we have the most noticeable absence in the film... Newt’s love interest and quite strong protagonist of the previous movies, Tina, as played by Katherine Waterston, is almost entirely missing in action from this installment. She has one brief shot near the end and then a couple of minutes at the conclusion of the movie... her disappearance being ‘explained away’ as being that she’s now a very busy person. 

Really? I mean, WTF? 

She was one of the best characters in the movies and now she’s been shunted out. Now, there were the usual COVID delays on this movie, plus the politically motivated ones but I’m also hearing she disagreed with comments made by Rowling (and blown up bizarrely by social media trolls) and that she was deliberately sidelined. I don’t buy that... what have personal viewpoints got to do with making art (and the horrible box office which wags the dog, for that matter)? I suspect scheduling conflicts due to COVID may have been an issue and, again, I suspect it’s why we have the ‘based on a screenplay’ credit on this picture. 

The story itself seems a lot weaker than the previous two, with the ingenious device of making the plan of the protagonists proof against those who can see the future by not having a real plan and obfuscating it from those who are even supposed to be executing it... allowing for the convoluted stitching together of set pieces to remain unchallenged by any collective raising of eyebrows from the audience. It’s a sound concept though so... it just about works. Surprisingly, this doesn’t make the identity of the end game protagonist any less easy to see coming a mile off but, yeah, it’s not a film about surprising anybody, for sure. 

And it’s a big, dumb(ledore) Hollywood blockbuster but it looks fantastic, has a great score by regular composer James Newton Howard (occasionally referencing John Williams’ themes at certain key points... like the obvious one for scenes taking place at Hogwarts), some good staging of certain scenes and some really nice acting turns... if you want to see Eddie Redmayne scuttling sideways and dancing like a lobster as a mechanic of successfully executing a rescue operation, then this is definitely the film to see. 

All in all, I had a really great time with Fantastic Beasts - The Secrets Of Dumbledore and I think fans of the series will appreciate it. I will, however, say three things that I see as problems with it. One is the fact that, if the previous film felt like a stepping stone to something bigger... this doesn’t feel like anything bigger at all... it feels more like a compromised story with an open ended, semi-conclusion in case no more films in the series are green lit. 

Secondly, the motivations of the turncoat actions of Queenie in the previous film are almost completely not addressed. I’m still none the wiser as to why she joined up with Grindelwald at the end of the previous movie. No idea what that was about. 

Thirdly, the definite lack of presence of Katherine Waterston’s character in this really hurts the film. It just feels wrong and is very conspicuous... just not a good idea, at all. If an actor can’t fit in with your schedules and she’s essential to the movie (as I feel Waterston was) then rearrange your schedules, is my advice. Other than those three things... an enjoyable movie and I certainly hope that Warner Brothers’, despite the low box office returns on this one, get off their high horse and get on with the series without worrying about what their actors and writers are doing behind the scenes (which is, frankly, none of their’s... or the audience’s, business). 

*Yeah okay... that kinda shows the huge gap between when I wrote this review & when I’m publishing it.

The Aeronauts

James’ Hun And
The Aeronauts

The Aeronauts
2019 UK/USA Directed by Tom Harper
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Very mild spoilers in terms
of the romantic content of the movie.

Directed by Tom Harper, The Aeronauts is one of those US co-productions with a distinctly British flavour, based on the real life antics of pioneering meteorologist James Glaisher in the 1860s. Starring the always brilliant Eddie Redmayne as Glaisher and the equally amazing Felicity Jones as his co-pilot on the venture, Amelia Wren, I was so entranced in this little ball of a wonderfully structured, cinematic gem that I was completely fooled in regard to the fact that, far from being a rock solid account of events as they took place in real life, there is a lot of fiction carefully grafted onto the source material to breathe life into the story. That is to say, the astonishing Mrs. Wren is, in fact, a complete fiction of a character... which makes me struggle a little with the restraint of one particular aspect of the story but I’ll come to that a little later. Suffice it to say, though, that Wren’s back story reads as completely convincing as any of the rest of the tale and it would be impossible for someone like me to tell what is what when it comes to seeing through the smoke and mirrors presented here. Not that I would want to do that, actually because... yeah... this is a truly entertaining little movie.

Okay, so  the film tells how Glaisher, with the help of his friend John Trew (played by Himesh Patel, who I thought was so good in Yesterday... reviewed here) approaches the recently widowed Amelia Wren, a couple of years after her husband died from falling from a hot air balloon flight the two were making (there’s more to that story but I won’t reveal it here), lifting her depression and hiring her as a co-pilot on a trip to get as far up as they can in the sky so that Glaisher can prove his theories about the atmosphere having layers and bring back enough research, or at least the start of research, to allow mankind to be able to predict the weather... something my various iphone apps still can’t do satisfactorily to this day. So next time you are looking at an app or show or weather report and want someone to blame for the blatantly false information based on meticulously researched guesswork, you can remember that you have James Glaisher to thank for it.

I love both lead actors in this movie and, of course, Redmayne and Jones already made a brilliant pair in their portrayals of Stephen Hawking and his wife in The Theory Of Everything (which I reviewed here). In this they are just as engaging and sharp as you would expect from them and it really helps to have two leads with such perfect chemistry because, frankly, the film is mostly a two hander set within their balloon... at least, that’s where the majority of the drama comes from.

In their quest to enlighten their audience, they are aided by a really ‘not bad’ script, in all honesty. The structure of the movie is such that the film starts with a bang just before the ballon is getting launched for its historic trip beyond the clouds and then, as the drama unfolds, one or other of the main characters will flash back to how they came to be in this position... in increments throughout the course of their current adventure... and just why they are exactly where they are (a bit like an old Marvel comic from the 1960s and 70s in that respect, I would say). The fact that they are both brilliant allows the narrative to soar through to the finish line with ease, using lots of comedy and personality clashes (to begin with) as Glaisher is the gruff, serious scientist (kind of) and Amelia is the wild, fun loving, entertainment seeker who demonstrates she can be more than just 'relied on' in a tight spot. This last demonstrated with some wonderfully fraught scenes of peril as the two characters race towards their final fate with death lurking in every gust of wind and with a truly brilliant final solution to slow the speed of their downward descent.

The film has a nice score, too, from Steven Price which, alas, has only been issued as the usual ‘quality challenged’, flat download and not put out on a proper CD... which means I won’t get the opportunity to hear it away from the main movie. However, it’s appropriate to the pacing and 'larger than life' shenanigans which go on in certain moments and beautifully compliments the visual information as it comes at you.

My one surprise (asides from a worrying scene with a dog early on in the film) comes in the form of the romantic element of the tale. It’s one of those movies where a burgeoning relationship is hinted at for the characters and it’s one which is never implicitly stated but certainly made a lot of in terms of the tone of the film. I was of the opinion then, as I watched it, that the two people obviously never ‘got it on’ in reality and so the moviemakers wanted to be true to life as much as possible, leaving the characters with a lot of things left unsaid. Which kinda made sense to me at the time. However, now that I know that Amelia Wren didn’t even exist in real life, I can’t think why the writers didn’t allow the romantic ‘sub plot’, as it were, to come to full fruition during the course of the film. I mean, everybody wants them to, don’t they?

Asides from this small puzzle and the fact that, in an age of CGI special effects, there is an underlying sense of sobriety in terms of taking the sheer spectacle of a hot air balloon credibly floating above 19th Century London at face value, I would have to say that The Aeronauts was one of the more enjoyable movies to get a cinema release this year and I’d gladly recommend this little slice of pseudo-history to anyone. The fiction of the thing may all be hot air but it certainly got this cinema goer to his final destination in as enjoyable a manner possible.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Spell Being

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
2018 UK/USA Directed by David Yates
UK cinema release print.

Once again, I should perhaps take some time to remind my readers that I am not the biggest admirer of Harry Potter. I saw the movies once each at the cinema because my father loves the books and I went with him but, I can’t say I enjoyed them all that much... although some were better than others and they were certainly all very well put together. That being said, I loved the first spin off film from a few years ago, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them (reviewed here) and I was staggered at just how cinematically subtle the handling of the script by author J. K. Rowling was on that one, especially since these Potter prequels are not actually based on any books of hers.

I was going to leave this one until I brought the Blu Ray home to my father later in the year but I figured I might as well go and catch Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald at the cinema before it came out of circulation and, I have to say that this is not nearly as great a movie as the last one. I don’t know what’s happened here but this seems to me to be much more like a Harry Potter movie and much less the more subtle entertainment of the last Fantastic Beasts installment.

Now, in the last film I loved the four main characters played by Eddie Redmayne (Newt Scamander), Dan Fogler (Jacob Kowalski), Katherine Waterston (Tina Goldstein) and Alison Sudol (Queenie Goldstein)... but it has to be said that while they are all reprising their characters here and, mostly, have a chunk or two of screen time, they are not in this movie nearly as much as they perhaps could have been. After a fairly good start, this film seems less about giving these lovely characters the spotlight and more about trying to cram in as much interconnecting back story for future dramatic intrigue as the writer and director are able to shoehorn into the already impressive running time. Which is a shame because, although it does seem more like a regular Harry Potter movie (which obviously isn’t a good thing as far as I’m concerned), it does seem like nothing much happens in this installment and characters do feel like they’ve been badly neglected. Not in terms of character progression, for sure... you get a sense that both Newt Scamander and Queenie Goldstein are moving on in their mindset and that things could get quite dark and treacherous in future movies (of which I think there are roughly another five planned). However, I did feel kind of shortchanged and some sequences, like time spent highlighting certain beasts, felt blessedly less protracted but also like they were only there to remind everyone about the first film... so not too happy on that count either.

The film looks and sounds spectacular and, as usual for the series, there are some not bad, half inventive concepts being thrown around but for me, the spectacle of the thing is just another element that takes away from the true magic of the characters and the way they relate to each other in this case. Also, this film seems very steeped in Harry Potter lore, including the addition of Dumbledore as a younger man played by Jude Law and we even spend some significant time in Hogwarts at certain points in the film. So Muggles like me have no chance when it comes to all the things that might have possibly made me go “Ooh!” at certain points. I did recognise the name LeStrange but that was about it.

Also, some of those big effects sequences seemed, to me, to be a little harder on the eye and more confusing to decode than what I am usually used to dealing with. I did find myself wondering what was going on at certain points but it was still pleasant enough to look at, for the most part. And, Johnny Depp, reprising his role as villain Grindlewald was a pleasure to watch... he’s rarely dull and he tends to hold the eye when he’s on screen.

Another fine element of the film is James Newton Howard’s follow up score to his previous one and it hits the all the right notes it needs to. Once again he teases Hedwig’s Theme from the Harry Potter films before really giving it some welly for certain sequences... which is strange since Hedwig is nowhere in sight. Presumably this means that current and probably future directors are using the melody to denote the magical world itself rather than focusing on a specific character or, in the case of this theme, a specific character’s owl. Either way, it’s a nice score and I’m looking forward to giving the CD I’ve got waiting a spin sometime in the New Year.

Other than that... not much more to say on this one. I’m hoping the direction of this one is just a temporary glitch and that the next installment can get back to the smaller stories on the canvass... namely the romances between the two sets of leading characters. I can’t say I’d recommend Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald to many people unless they are already heavily into the Rowlingverse... it’s certainly not a good jumping on point. I just hope things will become a little clearer in the next movie because, honestly, this one lost me a little.

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them

Bestiary In Show

Fantastic Beasts And
Where To Find Them
UK/USA 2016
Directed by David Yates
Warner Brothers Blu Ray Zone B

I’m really not much of a Harry Potter fan, it has to be said.

Unlike my parents, I’ve not read any of the books avidly and the only reason I’ve seen the films, once each, was because they dragged me along to the cinema to see them as each new one turned up. Alas, due to circumstances beyond their control, they never got to see this at the cinema so, instead of being dragged to my local flea pit to see it last year, I instead found myself watching it with them in a communal Blu Ray session so... I’m probably not the best candidate to give you a review focusing on the 'authenticity' of a story set in the Harry Potter universe.

What I can do, however, is at least give a view of how it works as a film and, it has to be said, this one’s not bad at all.

For me, the setting of 1920s big city America coupled with a central cast who aren’t a bunch of teenagers solving groovy mysteries is a good start at not alienating me completely and it’s also lucky I quite happen to like Eddie Redmayne as an actor, who plays the lead character here (yes, I even didn't mind him as that shouty bad guy in Jupiter Ascending, reviewed here... I have a lot of time for him).

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them dealt me its first surprise in that Potter creator J. K. Rowling actually wrote the screenplay... which isn’t based on a novel. What’s more, it doesn’t look like she had any help doing it (unless there was an uncredited script doctor in the mix) and so I have to say I’m very impressed that someone who is used to writing narrative based in novels is actually able to express themselves so quickly and competently in the rather more different medium of film. The more cynical part of me might say that’s no big surprise since she’s obviously been involved, to some degree, in the successful series of films based on her Harry Potter books for a fair few years but, nevertheless, the fact that the majority (for me... I’ll  get to it in a minute) of the film holds up as a cinematic whole is quite amazing and so she definitely is someone I should probably sit up and take more notice of at some point.

Not only is it a coherent movie... it’s also a fast paced one, which actually builds up characters and situations the audience can actually care about while still managing to cram in a heck of a lot of good ideas. The fact that she has an excellent cast such as Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Samantha Morton, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudo, Ron Perlman and Johnny Depp obviously contributes greatly to the characterisations but, even so, the dialogue is quite well written and so is the way in which certain set piece events impressively move the story along in an efficient yet, wildly entertaining manner. And believe me, I didn’t expect to be writing something like that about this movie.

We also have Colin Farrell thrown into the mix who is not, I have to say, an actor I usually have a lot of time and sympathy for but, since he’s playing an obvious villain here, that kind of worked for me too, in actual fact.

The juxtaposition of the quirkiness of the wizarding world we are familiar with now from the Potter series of movies (and books) with the 1920s big city milieu really works very well and everything slots together in a fashion which, at times, made me think of watching certain Terry Gilliam movies in my youth. That being said, there was one problem I had with it but, honestly, it’s only a minor one...

The zoo that the main character played by Redmayne carries around with him in his suitcase, which kinda works like the TARDIS in Doctor Who in terms of the inside being vastly bigger than the outside, features in a couple of scenes but the very first time we are taken in there... it kinda outstays its welcome just a little bit. While I can see where an overly long CGI sequence introducing us to various beasts is probably a great scene for kids, I kinda got bored with it in the same way as the extended Enterprise vanity shots in the original Star Trek The Motion Picture (reviewed here) failed to quicken my blood as a young ‘un. However, I have to remember that, as I am now approaching 50 years of age, I’m probably not the primary intended audience for a movie like this and so... yeah, it is what it is and it doesn’t ruin the movie, for sure.

Other than that overly long section, though, I certainly didn’t find myself getting bored by any of the other sequences in the movie, which are all a lot more faster paced and which never got in the way of character development. Indeed, I can’t wait to see what happens to Dan Fogler’s character in any of the sequels because I really had a fondness for him in this and his final fate is something which is not uncommon in modern science fiction but which is handled so beautifully and tenderly here that... well, you have to wonder how Rowling was able to write anything quite so subtle and equally have to wonder how much of that cinematic sophistication in the handling of certain scenes was aided by the director and actors in terms of the conceptual input. You also have to ask yourself if it actually matters too because... what is cinema if not a collaborative art form?

Not least is the collaborative input of James Newton Howard's excellent score which takes Johnny Williams’ Hedwig’s Theme, quite literally, as a starting point and then gently but surely takes us on a new musical voyage completely appropriate to the movie. That being said, there was a scene where Williams’ theme resurfaces in the last third of the movie for a moment and I was trying to figure out why that particular piece of leitmotif was being used here. I suspect if I knew more of the subtle references from the books and previous movies, which I’m pretty sure must be scattered about in here too, I’d have my answer but... ah well. That stuff is off my radar.

So there you have it. A movie I never really wanted to see turns out to be quite a good film and most certainly a well crafted one. If you are a fan of the Harry Potter series then you are probably going to want to take a look at Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, especially since I suspect the narrative will be linking in a lot more strongly in terms of the characters etc. in the next installment. For muggles like myself it’s probably not so essential but, even so, I quite enjoyed this one.

Jupiter Ascending

Ascension Of Disbelief

Jupiter Ascending
2015  US
Directed by The Wachowski Sibs 
UK cinema release print.

You know, I so wanted to title this review Jupiter, Arse Ending, because I’d already been primed by the film’s promotional trailer, to expect one of the worst sci-fi films ever made. Seriously, just like Kingsman, The Secret Service (a film I reviewed here), the trailer for Jupiter Ascending did absolutely nothing to make me want to go and see this movie. The trailer's a mess of clunky dialogue and hollow, non-contextual special effects clips that actually put me off wanting to go for this one. And if I’d missed seeing this one at the cinema, I might never had gotten around to it because a trailer this bad... blimey! And that would have been a shame, as it turns out.

So why did I luck out and go and see it then? Simple. I heard that Sony Music they were releasing a double CD album of the film’s score by one of my favourite contemporary composers, Michael Giacchino. Now, Giacchino’s involvement alone would not have gotten me into the cinema and past that awful trailer, to be honest. What actually got me there was the fact that a double CD album meant that Sony were invested in releasing two discs of a score... so they must have had some faith in it. A score must be pretty special to get the two disc treatment these days and, since I’d already been to see what can only be the worst film I’ll see this year, and a lot of other years besides, Mortdecai (which I review here), I figured there was surely no way that Jupiter Ascending could be anywhere near as bad as that movie had turned out to be.

And so I went to the cinema last night to see, and hear, Jupiter Ascending for myself... and I was both delighted and disappointed by it.

Delighted because it’s, frankly, a damned good escapist, pulp sci-fi movie which is rarely pulled off as entertainingly as this one is and disappointed because, as I said in my opening line, now I don’t get to use my cool Jupiter, Arse Ending title for the review. Damn!

So why does the film work so well?

A friend of mine, Jason Pyke, had told me that it was a bit like Dune crossed with Brazil and that’s a pretty good little summation, I think... one which I’ll look at in more detail in a minute. It’s pretty much a film which covers all the bases and is influenced by a lot of science fiction and space opera over the years. A lot of the influences are not hard to pinpoint and there’s really no reason why this mess of a movie should hold together as well as it does... but it somehow seems to pull it all together and transcend the possible disasters that most postmodern amalgams fall prey to... and has fun doing it along the way.

Some of the things that really shouldn’t work are the clunky dialogue that actors and actresses like Mila Kunis (as the perfectly pulpily named Jupiter Jones), Channing Tatum, Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne are having to try to say whilst keeping a straight face. It’s seriously bad in some places but the performances, coupled with the way it’s edited, seem to make up for it in a way that the trailer, to be fair, couldn’t have possibly been able to hide. The always brilliant Eddie Redmayne (see my reviews of his films My Week With Marilyn and The Theory of Everything) is somewhat uncharacteristically over the top here... using a terrible ‘treacherous royalty’ kind of accent and a performance which should leave you laughing but... I honestly don’t know how he got away with it but it just about works here... strangely enough.

There are a few things, asides from the performances and awesome visual effects, that the film does have going for it. It really is not unlike the Dune books by Frank Herbert, although the ‘spice’ has been replaced, right up front, by a commodity which will have any sci-fi fan worth his or her salt quoting a certain famous Charlton Heston line from the movie Soylent Green. However, to offset the tone, the film seems to work with the same kind of methodology of a Roger Corman movie... but instead of a scene of gratuitous nudity inserted for every ten pages of script, you have an action sequence to offset any of the plot as it runs it’s course. So it’s very much... talk - action scene - talk - action scene - talk - action scene in the most transparent way but it works like the best examples of that kind of escapist product works, the same way an old Doc Savage novel or a good 1930s - 1950s theatrical serial might work. And it keeps you entertained.

Also, it’s noticeable that a lot of Joseph Campbell’s theories about ‘story and myth’, the ones that George Lucas was making such a fuss about a little while ago, are woven, almost by default, into the story and screenplay... so it works really well when you have ‘magical aids’ to the heroine’s “call to adventure” like antigravity boots and the control of bees thrown into the mix. It’s wild and hilarious at some levels but it moves so fast that you never get the time to be anything other than caught up in the story.

And, yes, you do have a sudden insert into the middle of the movie which is basically ten minutes of Franz Kafka as filtered by Terry Gilliam’s Brazil... which somehow fits right into things and is capped off with a lovely little cameo of a role played by Terry Gilliam himself. A nice little cherry on the cake for that scene and, like I said, this movie is not exactly quiet about its various influences.

Fans of British comics who are familiar with the famous, multi-part epic Judge Dredd story The Day The Law Died will also recognise a strangely winged variation of the terrifying Kleggs, although they are not actually called that here. Also, the arguably ‘real life’ aliens known world wide as The Greys are mixed into this intoxicating cocktail of a movie in a way which is both sinister and representative of their place and function in modern Urban Myth and UFO Folklore. In fact, after a bit of a clunky scene, it was these characters who really pulled me into the mythology of the movie and allowed me to "buy in" to what the Wachowski’s are trying to achieve here... which is, at the end of the day, a hugely entertaining pulp fest reminiscent, it’s true, of various 1950s sci-fi stories but with a lot of heart behind the spirit of the final product... and a lot of action too.

Now, while Jupiter Ascending is unlikely to be winning any awards, it does have a strong, central female protagonist and an underlying romantic story set to a background of upper echelon, royalty and politics... and a heck of a lot of punching, fighting, chasing and general mayhem exploding onto the screen at the drop of a hat. If you go and see this movie, love it or hate it, one thing you are not going to be is fed up with it.

Oh, and as for that Giacchino score I was so anxious to hear... fantastic. Operatic and action packed scoring which isn’t completely buried in the mix and will have you tapping your toes along with the galactic obliteration. It’s a great score for a great little, big budgeted B-movie. A B-movie which, impressively, transcends its short-comings, of which there are many, and polishes it up into a fast moving, entertaining thrill ride which is over way too quickly. Definitely a film that should find its audience, I think. And if you like pulp sci-fi adventure yarns, you should seek it out too.

The Theory of Everything

Look Who’s Hawking

The Theory of Everything
2014  UK
Directed by James Marsh 
UK cinema release print.

Almost every year these days, on my birthday, I take my parents out to see a movie at our local cinema. It’s rare they go to the cinema and probably only go with me between 2 and 4 times a year. Usually, to be honest, it’s to a film that I know one of them would like, rather than something I would be happiest seeing myself and, this year, I decided on the new biopic of Stephen Hawking, The Theory Of Everything, because I knew my father would probably really like this one (and I can always buy my mum Paddington on Blu Ray for Mother’s Day, after all).

Now, I’m really not a religious person and I don’t understand the willingness of anybody to believe or support any of the organised religions of the world... which seem to be crafted by the hand of man as a tool for control at the best of times. However, just because I have that view, it doesn’t mean I rule out the existence of God, or a God-like being or, possibly, a God-like energy in the universe. I like to keep an open mind about such things. Many people seem to think that Hawking’s scientific theories preclude God or a God-like entity in the mix and that seems to be the same tack that this film takes. One thing I will say on this subject, however, is this... Hawking’s has got motor neuron disease. When it was first properly diagnosed in the early to mid-sixties (going by the film here) he was given just two years to live. It’s now over fifty years since then and he is still with us. If ever someone wanted to try and show some evidence that there is a deity watching out for certain people on Earth or the possibility of a grand scheme of things then the survival of Stephen Hawking, the greatest scientific mind of our generation, would definitely be considered by most people... well... a bit of a miracle.

The film is based on the memoirs of Hawking as told by his once and longtime wife, Jane Hawking, brilliantly portrayed by Felicity Jones. Hawking himself is a tour-de-force of a performance by Eddie Redmayne, who I first saw when he was playing Colin Clark in My Week With Marilyn (reviewed here). He was pretty good in the former film but he really does turn in a gobsmacking performance here. If he was just portraying Hawking in one specific phase of his battle with motor neuron disease then it would be no less brilliant but certainly understandable. However, with the timing of the film spanning from around 1962 to the present day, with Hawking seen in various stages of the disease... when you take into account that these thing are not shot in chronological order... well, this performance must get some kind of recognition when it comes to award season, I reckon.

Felicity Jones has an easier time of it, I would guess, but her performance here is no less subtle...

I once had a really good friend. I’ve somehow managed to fall out with her now but, in fact, the lady I’m thinking of was almost certainly the best friend I’ll ever have and I can’t imagine that ever not being true, regardless of the fact that I don’t see her any more. When we first started talking, years ago, in a pub rendezvous, I became aware that she was looking after someone very sick and, my reaction to that news was honest and it’s probably something that someone in the position of caring for someone above and beyond the call of duty is used to, coming from that kind of situation... I immediately started trying to think of ways in which the person she was caring for could be helped and try to understand what the sick person was going through. However, it was made clear to me, as that particular conversation wore on, that the person who is actually caring for someone and having to do a lot more than a standard workload in their relationship (this on top of a full time job, no less) is a person who also needs the understanding and support of those around her/him. That role gets taken for granted a lot but it is exhausting and it’s something that the one being cared for is too wrapped up in illness to appreciate that often... and that can be a wearing, grueling, big deal of an issue sometimes. And it’s something I tend to consider more (I hope) when I meet people in a similar situation (as I have on occasion).

All of this kind of responsibility was brilliantly performed by Felicity Jones’ performance as Jane and, again, like Eddie Redmayne’s performance, it’s a slow burn where the actress has had to cope with playing the gradual build up from doing all the extra work caring for her on-screen husband to not coping with all that life is flinging at her. And again, it’s something she’s had to film out of sequence but with a degree of subtlety so that, when it’s all put together in linear fashion... and it’s a, mostly, surprisingly linear film, to be fair... then we see the gradual build up as all the elements line up against her and wear her down over time.

So... cracking performances by both the male and female leads, in this one.

It has to be said, though, that the film relies almost purely on these performances to the exclusion of much else. Sure, there are some nicely elegant set pieces and some lovely shot designs but there seems to be a lack of interest in experimentation in the way the movie is put together so that, even when a specific moment comes up at a Q & A scene near the end of the movie and the on-screen Hawking appears to do something he would never be able to do in real life, it never really takes you by surprise and I thought that where the director did try and use the language of cinema a little by running the film backwards as a metaphor, perhaps, for Hawking’s theories, it wasn’t really all that successful or as interesting as it might have been... at least not to this audience member.

However, one thing the film certainly is, is it’s a more than competent, British-made biopic with a very well written script and very strong performances so, frankly, anything else would have just been extra icing on the cake anyway. Similarly, Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score was appropriate and certainly easy on the ear but, I couldn’t help but wondering what it might have been if they had maybe employed the services of a composer like Alexandre Desplat, to be honest, but again... it was still pretty good and too much icing can be fattening at the best of times.

At the end of the day, The Theory Of Everything is a really neatly put together and powerful dramatisation of the majority of the life of one of the greatest scientific thinkers in history. It’s something that British cinema and television seem to do extraordinarily well and this entertaining and moving film is certainly no exception. Definitely worth a look if you don’t go in expecting too much from it structurally or are anticipating semiotic acrobatics. Certainly something which will hook you in from the start, though, and the performances are well worth the watch. Don’t waste any time contemplating not seeing this one... you never know what time is going to do to you next.