Both stories are set in rich, leafy academic environments. Both deal with the lives of complicated geniuses who challenged entrenched notions and defied authority figures. Both incorporate unusual love stories. And both contain powerful performances, particularly in the lead roles.
But A Beatiful Mind (directed by Ron Howard and starring Russel Crowe) won four Academy Awards including the coveted Best Picture honor and a Best Director statuette for Howard. A Beautiful Mind is right up there with Amadeus when it comes to movies about prodigies and geniuses.
So, comparing The Theory of Everything with A Beutiful Mind can be challenging, to say the least. Especially since there's one important difference: While The Theory of Everything is based on a book by the former Mrs. Hawking, A Beautiful Mind came from an unauthroized third-person biography penned by a Columbia University journalism professor.
And it's important to note that Mr. and [formerly] Mrs. Hawking are still friends. So the story that is told here from the woman's point of view is largely sensitive and affectionate though nontheless realistic in its depiction of Hawking's ongoing battle with ALS. Certainly, Hawking's story is odds-defying, breathtaking and hugely inspiring. But adapting such a story to the screen means that the script, the actors and the director must work together so as to be neither maudlin nor sccahrine. It's a delicate balance.
In this movie the whole effort has the enormous advatage of Eddie Redmayne in the starring role. And the current Oscar buzz around this young man is legit.
Redmayne is one of the most exciting actors working today and he succeeds in making Hawking suprisingly charming without being puckish. Redmayne has to convey a lot in this performance just by the movement of his eyes or his facial expressions - no small feat. One's thinking he must have studied the great silent movies because he succeeds spectacularly. And yet, he does it all while avoiding excess drama. There's no hand wringing or gnashing of teeth here and (Heavan Forbid, we're British) positively no pitying.
As Jane Wild Hawking, Felicity Jones plays a woman who succumbs to love at first sight but also faces adversity with a rock-ribbed determination. She's not living a romantic dream and she knows it. If this movie had been set in Alabama, we'd call her a steel magnolia. She's quite compelling.
And these two characters grow, change and develop as the story unfolds - even as Jane encounters Jonathan (her Church choir director) and Stephen encounters Elaine (his in-home caregiver). As Jonathan, Charlie Cox is that perfect British combination of dashing and clumsy, detrmined and doubtful. He's quite a scene-stealer. As Elaine, Maxine Peake is the ultimate seductive older woman. You might otherwise think her cunning if she didn't make it all seem so natural.
This is a fine film but we doubt that it will have quite the same impact as A Beutiful Mind which not only won all those awards but also went on to gross an astounding $313 million.
But, there we go again. Didn't we warn you about comparing the two?
In other words, just go see A Beautiful Mind and lose yourself in the remarkable story and the excellent acting. It's bound to restore (or reaffirm) your faith in the human condition. And that's not such a bad thing, is it?
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