We’re closing 2015 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. No9 is Tanya Gold’s piece from January, when The Theory of Everything was released.
Stephen Hawking is a misogynist; and also, quite possibly, a narcissist. You wouldn’t know it from watching The Theory Of Everything, the new biopic from Working Title, in which you are invited only to weep when he discovers he has motor neurone disease at 21, and then marvel at his achievements in physics. It goes wild on the obvious cognitive dissonance of Hawking’s life and work — trapped in his body, yet transported in his mind to the stars.
I cried as Eddie Redmayne — as Hawking — falls, rises and is redeemed with medals too numerous to type; he is very good, but he only goes where the script allows him. But I do not like being manipulated by cinema, unless I know I am being manipulated; and Working Title is usually Steven Spielberg transported to the UK — all sudsy soap and sticky emotion.
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