Jane and I don’t
often get to the cinema these days, but thanks to the good offices of a friend
we did get to watch The Theory of
Everything last week. It’s the
film based on the memoir of Jane Hawking, wife of physicist Stephen Hawking, Travelling to Infinity (a revision of Music to Move the Stars), neither of
which I have read – yet. Clearly
the reason I wanted to see it is because I have a similar sort of Motor Neurone
Disease to the professor, although my survival won’t be as long as his since I
was diagnosed in my early 50s.
So what did I
think of it? Contrary to
expectation, I did not break down in tears or howl – which is strange since it
takes very little to trigger off outbursts of embarrassing emotion when I’m
watching a remotely romantic or sad scene, as my family will attest. And the film is emotional, focused as it is on the relationship between the
amazing Jane and the remarkable Stephen.
I puzzle as to the reason.
Maybe it’s because I was checking off the familiar symptoms and admiring
how accurately Eddie Redmayne (Stephen) had captured them. It is a truly remarkable performance uncannily
capturing, I gather, his mannerisms and his voice (until his tracheotomy). I recognized the eccentric clumsiness,
knocking things on the floor, the tripping over feet, the helpless falling to
the ground and being unable to help oneself up. The alarming choking fits were familiar, as was Jane’s
matter-of-fact remedy of thumping between the shoulder blades. We’re familiar with Jane understanding
the inarticulacy of MND and interpreting it clearly for others. Yes, technically it was brilliant.
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I also found
Felicity Jones’ portrayal of Jane quite beautiful and, by the real Jane
Hawking’s account, very true to life.
In my experience there’s an astonishing strength in MND caring spouses. As in the film, it is undemonstrative,
almost matter of fact. What the
film is unable to show, however, by its very nature, is the emotional toll of
the year-on-year care for someone you love who is progressively deteriorating
in spite of all your efforts. It’s
possible to debate whether the usual frighteningly rapid types of MND or the
exceptional protracted types are easier to deal with, but this truly is a case
when comparisons are odious. Each
is equally hard in different ways.
All the film can do is highlight incidents which exemplify the strain
imposed on both Stephen and Jane by his illness. But believe me, being the ill person is easier than being
his carer/partner. The sustained pressure
of being sole carer and mother of three growing children beggars belief.
In my view Jane is
the hero of the film. She makes
the commitment to love and cherish Stephen in sickness and in health till death
parts them, we gather, and sticks to it, despite our and his family’s scepticism.
After an initial diagnosis of two
years of life, the marriage in fact lasted thirty years, until it fell apart when
an exhausted Jane was replaced in Stephen’s affections by the exciting nurse,
Elaine Mason (played by Maxine Peake).
Jane’s close platonic relationship with choirmaster, Jonathan Hellyer
Jones (Charlie Cox), in due course ended in reality in their happy marriage. The film, I gather, exercises some
artistic licence with the facts of Travelling
to Infinity, but sticks fairly faithfully to the story.
For me a crucial moment was when
Stephen had gone to the opera and had a coughing fit, which laid him up in
hospital (in fact in Geneva) with pneumonia, while Jane had taken the children
camping with Jonathan. Jane rushes
to his bedside where he lies unconscious on life-support. The doctor faces her with the critical
decision: shall he withdraw the life-support? Now conventional wisdom would say, let him have a merciful
release from an undignified life of disabling terminal illness. The doctor adds that the only way to
save him is to give him a tracheotomy (an incision in his throat) meaning he
won’t ever be able to talk at all. For Jane it would have been an easy way out and for Stephen a
merciful release. Whether it is
her faith in God or her faith in her husband, she has no truck with the doctor’s
advice and refuses to give permission for removing life-support. Gradually, as we know, he recovered,
and went on three years later to publish A
Brief History of Time, which gave him his fortune and his international
celebrity. As he says in his answer near the end of
the film, “However bad life may seem, there is always
something you can do, and succeed at. While there's life, there is hope.” Professor Hawking has lent his support to the campaign for
assisted dying. It’s ironic then that,
had his wife in 1985 followed that campaign’s logic, he would not still be
alive and have the prospect of fulfilling one of his ambitions, to travel in
space.
Despite popular myths, I suspect that neither Professor Hawking's determination to fight the disease nor Jane’s care actually
served to prolong his survival. Motor
Neurone Disease is implacable, and no amount of will power makes much
difference to its course. The
truth is that at diagnosis it’s hard to tell the variant of the disease, and
that the average survival is two
years. However there are different
sorts, as I’ve indicated. And it
is the passing of time that proves if you are destined to outlive the average. Clearly giving up hope and receiving
poor care would contribute to an earlier demise, but MND marches on whether
fast or slowly.
What is the power and the attraction
of the film? I suspect that for
most people it is the paradox of the brilliant scientific mind trapped in an increasingly
helpless body – and the incredible determination of both central characters
that not even the greatest odds should defeat their resolve. It’s also a love story of course, of a
peculiarly poignant kind, or to be more accurate it’s two or three love
stories. Maxine Peake captures an
ambiguity in Elaine’s relationship with Stephen, which never has quite the
tenderness that Jane demonstrated for him. There’s admiration for the great man and a hint of
professional ownership. It’s an
impressively subtle performance.
Charlie Cox, the fourth in the love story, gives a restrained
performance of the widower, Jonathan, which well reflects the tension of his
attraction to Jane and his respect for her position as Stephen’s emotional and
physical mainstay. I thoroughly
believe the film’s account of the dynamics of the four central characters.
Eddie Redmayne has deservedly won
an award for his bravura portrayal of Hawking. I very much hope that Felicity Jones, in her equally
demanding role, receives the recognition she merits. That gritty determined commitment which constitutes caring
for a loved one is far from flamboyant but is heroic. I hope she receives an award for all the Janes who never get
the recognition they deserve, and whom she sensitively and strongly
represented.
The film is called The Theory of Everything – the elusive
object of Stephen Hawking’s scientific quest. I’m left wondering whether the meaning of everything isn’t more
important and whether Jane hasn’t found it already.
