1) The Theory Of Everything (2014)
It is difficult to know where to start with describing the ending of The Theory of Everything. Like all films that are based on real life events, we know roughly what is going to happen at the end. But we couldn’t have known how it was going to happen – how exactly director James Marsh was going to approach the close of this most poignant and sensitive of stories.
Stephen Hawking, of course, hasn’t passed away. Despite the awful prognosis that he first received, he has lived to a full fifty years beyond it. Hawking has achieved more in a single lifetime of severe disability than generations of perfectly healthy people could, and it would be wrong to view his situation as entirely tragic. This is not what Hawking himself wants, and it is certainly not what Marsh wants from his film.
On the other hand, we cannot ignore the tragedy of this good and brilliant man having been so devastatingly ravaged by this cruellest of diseases, that threatened to render him incapable of utilizing any of his genius. As his doctor so effectively and terrifyingly summarizes: “Your thoughts won’t change…it’s just that, eventually, no-one will know what they are.”
It was crucial that Marsh struck a balance between appreciation for Hawking’s courage, determination and achievements – and awareness of the horror of the situation. Nowhere throughout his consistently wonderful film does Marsh create this balance more effectively than in the final few minutes of the movie.
Stephen (a sublime Eddie Redmayne) and Jane (Felicity Jones) are in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, watching their children play in the fountain. They are now divorced, and although it is amiable, there is a palpable sense of loss between them – the loss of everything they fought so hard to build in their marriage. But, they created their children, and it is to this mutual achievement that Stephen draws her attention in the last passage of dialogue: “Look what we made.” There is a sense that the Hawking’s lives, so extraordinary and so difficult in so many ways – have been just like those of any other human beings.
Then, in a stunning visual sequence, Marsh continues this moving realization with a rapid series of scenes from the film that appear in reverse order and that trace their lives from this day back to the day they met, coming to rest finally on the young and healthy Stephen Hawking who was then standing at the dawn of love, and of world renowned greatness. There is inescapable sadness in this reminder of his and Jane’s love and determination, and of course in the reliving of Stephen’s physical degeneration. But there is joy too – and, a certain heart-breaking dignity.
Finally, the main credits roll over a series of beautiful stills of the cosmos, and end with an outline of the young Hawking appearing among the stars. That same mixture of sadness and joy is reflected here, a thousand times amplified, as Hawking’s story of tremendous bravery and achievement in the face of almost unimaginable adversity seems etched eternally into the very universe to which he devoted his life, and for which the world will forever owe him so much. There are few moments in film that that can truly be called perfect – but this is one of them.