Review of the movie Stephen Hawking's Universe. Sick Oscar
Traditionally, movies about people with physical or mental disabilities are in great demand among American movie academics. Sometimes, like with Rain Man or Forrest Gump, they tell completely fictional stories, and then the effect produced by the project depends solely on the skill of its creators. And it happens that in the center of the plot are quite historical figures, like the brilliant mathematician John Nash (A Beautiful Mind) or Stephen Hawking (The Universe of Stephen Hawking). But in this case, there is a great temptation to mask the shortcomings of the script and production with the greatness of the hero himself. This is exactly what happened with the biography of a wheelchair-bound British physicist. The problem with James Marsh's movie, of course, is not the lack of decent material, because Hawking's life itself is a potion of monstrous blows of fate, outstanding discoveries and equally incredible luck. All this has long been asking for screens. And not even that in almost every frame the tape strives by all means to avoid comparison with Mind Games, while borrowing almost everything from the work of Ron Howard. The trouble is that Stephen Hawking's Universe frankly boring. There is no intrigue in it, a hint of passion and even any intelligible explanation of the physicist's merits. Almost 90 percent of the screen time, the viewer sees Eddie Redmayne's antics, which would do honor to a movie project on a medical topic, but not a biography of such a person. After all, the power of such stories lies not at all in physical reliability (this is what the performer of the main role does just well), but in creating an inspiring example. Naturally, the daily life of seriously ill people is full of unpleasant details and, looking at a paralyzed disabled person in an ironed shirt and ironed trousers, any sane person understands what is behind this and what efforts it costs those around him. But should helplessness be the dominant emotion in viewers? Or he, the viewer, should admire this very `` game of the great mind '', for which personal dramas are only a background intensifying the effect. Nothing like this in Stephen Hawking's Universe not. Instead of the stated in the name & “Theory of Everything”, the creators of the picture, for some reason, carefully focus on the fact that THERE the main character is all right, and the terrible illness did not prevent him from having a couple of wives and several children. And instead of a scientist with a unique intellect, we are offered the image of a very clever opportunist, quite naturally changing the first wife who passed through fire and water for a pretty nurse, whose whole merit lies in the ability to slip an adult magazine into the hero in time. Nor does it get any impressive romantic story. Since all the melodramaticism turns out to be exhausted in the first half hour, the awkward dance under the stars familiar from a thousand other movies. Yes, yes, we all have known for a long time that great scientists were not averse to hitting on pretty students and drinking a mug of ale, but they somehow did not work with the dance numbers. Of course, this is not the fault of either Eddie Redmayne or his colleagues on the set. With all the richness of Stephen Hawking's biography, they simply have nothing to play. They really do try, but, caught between the hammer of Anthony McCaretna's scriptural helplessness and the hard place of the mediocre direction of James Marsh, they cannot jump over their heads. In short, none of those who stood for Stephen Hawking's Universe doesn't deserve an Academy Award nomination. And if, after all, the fashion for the `` sick '' Oscars will allow some of them to win the award, they should give it to those who continue to support the life and legend of the author of The Brief History of Time to this day The Topic of Article: Review of the movie Stephen Hawking's Universe. Sick Oscar. |
