The Theory of Everything film still photographed by Liam Daniel/ Focus Features
True stories are often so much better than fiction. The Theory of Everything tells the true love story of world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking and Jane Wilde, the woman who stood by him as their world collapsed around them with his diagnosis of ALS at the age of 21. Freddie Redmayne’s and Felicty Jones’ portrayals of Hawking and Wilde are extraordinary and heartbreaking, raw and honest, the kind that suck you in and make you forget they’re actors. Hawking’s is an against-all-odds tale: Originally given two years to live and ultimately dependent on a motorized chair and computer voice, he goes on to father three children with Wilde, write a popular physics book (that in and of itself a feat) A Brief History of Time and become one of the most beloved figures in science, academia and pop culture. And Wilde, as his wife, has more strength, endurance and compassion than humanly possible, as if her stubborn willpower enables him to achieve everything.

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