Hawking

This has just shown on BBC2 here in the U.K this very night, and i'am still thinking about it five hour's later. the performances of the cast especially Benedict Cumberbatch as the young Stephen Hawking were superb. The sreenplay while somewhat fictionalized was to the point and highly emotive. The scienific plight of Hawking was simply and well told and the scenes of his horribly degenerating disease( M.N) are highly moving. My uncle died of this disease a year after being diagnosed, that Hawking has continued living with this disease for forty years is not only a testament to his will but also the passion he holds in his life and groundbreaking work. Superb! This should win awards around the world seriously and far, far better than the over praised A Beautiful Mind.Hawking truly was a beautiful mind.

I didn't expect to enjoy this film. I did, and I'm still thinking about it. It was moving, emotional, sensitive and brilliantly crafted.

I know little about Stephen Hawking, and the subjects of physics and cosmology are completely over my head. I think it is a testament to the script and performances that this film made such subject matter appealing and engaging. Don't think the film is for science geeks - it is an uplifting story full of courage and hope and is thoroughly rewarding.

Benedict Cumberbatch is quite simply brilliant in this film. He is without doubt one of the finest actors in Britain.

The story of young Stephen Hawking's doctorate - starting with his 21st birthday in 1963, shortly after which he was diagnosed with motor neuron disease. The story continues with Hawking going to Cambridge to gain his doctorate, during which he fights to come to terms with his illness, grows ever-closer to young student Jane Wilde, and has to figure out something to write his thesis on... ...All this is told in flashback by Nobel Prize winners Bob Wilson and Arno Penzias (Tom Hodgkins and the marvellously irascible Michael Brandon, respectively), talking in 1978 about their discovery - the "3 degree hiss" of microwaves that is the echo of the Big Bang, which is the proof of Hawking's remarkable and evolutionary theory that he formulated for his doctorate thesis. Hawking didn't come up with the idea of the Big Bang, but he did show mathematically that the prevalent theory of the time - "Steady State", in which the universe was thought to be unchanging and to have existed forever - was wrong.

The performances are uniformly excellent, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role making for a very convincing Hawking, capturing his brilliance and vulnerability well and portraying his physical deterioration sympathetically and convincingly. Other standout performances include Tom Ward as Roger Penrose, giving a superbly confident and energetic portrayal of the young professor who was Hawking's friend and mentor; John Sessions as Dennis Sciama, quiet and intense as Hawking's supervisor; Peter Firth as a triumphantly and permanently bad-tempered Fred Hoyle, with whom Hawking locked horns over their contradictory theories on the origin of the universe; and Lisa Dillon as Jane Wilde, who gave Hawking the strength to overcome his illness and realise his ideas.

Is this a sanitised or oversimplified story? Undoubtedly, but these things always are. That doesn't matter; the main characters are engaging, and the science is extremely well-handled. Hawking's "eureka" moment, when he literally falls off a train and desperately explains his idea to Penrose by drawing with chalk on the station platform, is powerful and moving and believable in equal measure. This drama shows that it's not just the great artists, the painters and composers and musicians, who have led remarkable and fascinating lives - science, in its own way, has just as much power to move and intrigue, and scientists have just as many great stories to tell.

I have just seen this excellent film.

It begins with a character resembling Stephen Hawking slouching in a deep armchair. But, then he gets up and walks!!! This is the basis of the film. We are all familiar with Stephen Hawkign as he is today, but this film will now tell us the story of the man and his ideas before he became the the icon he is today.

I really enjoyed this film - both as portrait of a brave man and a brief description of the development of the big bang theory and some of it's underlying concepts.

Among the cast I especially enjoyed Michael Brandon as one of the two Bell Labs scientists who first discovered the sound of the creation of the universe. However, I do agree with several other comments here that the section about his German origin was confusing and unnecessary.

The film is very much aware of the fact that it will be compared with "A beautiful mind" - it even refers to the "beautiful" concept among scientists. In many ways I much prefer this portrait of a much more sympathetic beautiful mind.

Initially thought it'll feel like a documentary. But was pleasantly surprised. Not many of us know of how Hawking came to be and how his formative days were. Hence from a biographical point it was very insightful, though it covers only the first few years of his professional life. And the various facets showed in the series is what keeps it from being a documentary and more of an entertainer. The direction is quite good and so is the editing , considering how much they could show and how much they actually had time for. One of the first times I saw Cumberbatch and he is really great,he has the ability to take on any role and make it his own, the energy and passion he shows in this one is no less,wonder if there's a lot of method acting training in his past or he is naturally gifted. Overall a great watch, so see it.