Focus Features today released the first trailer for the James Marsh-directed The Theory of Everything, and it looks like surefire Oscar bait. The subject is famous astro-physicist Stephen Hawking, but rather than being a conventional biopic, the movie instead focuses on Hawking’s relationship with his first wife, Jane Wilde. Eddie Redmayne (My Week With Marilyn) plays Hawking, with Felicity Jones (Like Crazy) co-starring as Jane.
Based on Wilde’s own memoir, Traveling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen, the film will chronicle Hawking’s early life as a student at Cambridge, where he first met Wilde, and of course the diagnosis of his motor neuron disease at age 21, which slowly crippled his body. In the movie, as happened in real life, Jane heroically sticks by Stephen and supports him in his work and his fight against the disease. Of course, to really be swept away by this love story, one must ignore the fact that years later Hawking would divorce Jane and leave her and their children for his nurse, Elaine Mason. Presumably, the movie will exclude that part of Hawking’s life.
Jones is a rising star, having been recently seen in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and nabbing roles in upcoming prestige films like Rosaline and A Monster Calls. Redmayne, despite having what some might describe as an imminently punchable face, is also building quite career for himself, with roles in last year’s high-profile Les Misérables, as well as the Wachowski siblings’ upcoming Jupiter Ascending.
Director Marsh is no stranger to awards, as his 2008 film Man on Wire took home the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Likewise, distributor Focus Features found Oscar success with last year’s Dallas Buyer’s Club, the release plan for which The Theory of Everything will imitate this fall. The film will officially premiere at next month’s Toronto International Film Festival ahead of an early November – the 7th in this case – theatrical release date.
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