We have seen many film biographies of great individuals (mostly men). But we have seen almost no films, fact-based or fictional, about great marriages. And we have certainly never seen any films about great marriages that end up with the couple married to other people. But that is what this is.  It is the story of a “marriage of true minds,” an equal partnership in every way, with two very intelligent and committed people working as hard as they can to be the best they can for one another.

And they are portrayed by two people of enormous talent, with both Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne giving performances of enormous depth and understanding.  Of course Redmayne has the showier, awards-bait role, and he is meticulous in Hawking’s physical decline. In his previous films like “Les Miserables” and “My Week With Marilyn,” Redmayne has shown a gift for the sensitive, doe-eyed young hero.  But as Hawking, he shows a shrewdness and wit we have not seen from him before, even at the end, when Hawking has just one cheek muscle he can control.  There is never a hint of stunt-ishness.  It is always about the character whose mind is perhaps even freer to roam the farthest reaches of the universe and of human comprehension as his body is failing and he is completely physically dependant.

The luminous Jones matches him every bit of the way as Jane Hawking ages and as she grapples with finding a way to continue to relate to her husband as an adult and an equal while caring for him.  She is also a scholar in her own right who wants to do her own work, while somehow caring for her children and her husband, an intellectual supernova who is becoming an icon.

The screenplay is based on the book by Jane Hawking, the first wife of the scientist many people think of as the greatest mind of our generation, the physicist Stephen Hawking, best known for his appearances on “The Big Bang Theory” and his mega-best-selling book for the lay audience, A Brief History of Time. (The book’s purported status as the most-bought but least-read best-seller has inspired the “Hawking Index.”) And so we get a rare glimpse into what it was like from the point of view of the “wife of.”

Jane met Stephen when they were both students.  They had very little in common.  He was studying physics. She was studying Spanish poetry.  He was an atheist.  She was a churchgoer and believer.  He was disorganized, not socially adept or at least not interested in fitting in.  She was a natural rule-follower and very comfortable in social situations.  There was never anything conventional about their encounters or conversations.  

And yet, they felt the kind of pull that is better described by poetry than physics, the kind that seems to mean that only the similarities matter.  She smiles, “I like to time travel. Like you.”

And then Hawking is given the devastating diagnosis of motor neuron disease (ALS), with a life expectancy of perhaps two years of calamitous decline of all muscles.  “Your thoughts won’t change,” he is told, “but eventually no one will know what they are.”

Hawking’s father warns Jane away.  “This will not be a fight.  This will be a heavy defeat for all of us.”  But Jane is resolute.  She is determined that they will get married and they will fight.  They get married, with him leaning heavily on a cane.  They have two children.  And he loses muscular control, more every day.  Each downward ratchet is wrenching, but ultimately he has to give up walking and move to a wheelchair as eventually he will have to give up speech and learn to operate a computer with one muscle in his cheek to have it speak for him.  Adding insult to injury, it will be with an American accent.

In the meantime, he is transforming our understanding of the universe and our place in it, and then turning those theories upside down and starting over as he attempts to synthesize the two areas of physics into one simple, elegant, beautiful formula that will explain how it all fits together.  

Screenwriter Anthony McCarten and director James Marsh (“Project Nim”) show deep understanding and extraordinary sensitivity in conveying with small, intimate details what is going on in this marriage.  Hands reach casually across a dinner table while two of the people at the table watch, just a slight tightening of the muscles around the eyes or mouth revealing what it is like to see it be so easy for other people.  They can love each other despite his awful knowledge of being a burden while resenting the healthy. And despite her equally awful knowledge of his humiliation in being a burden. We see the combined beauty and soul-destroying relentlessness of being a caretaker.  

They try to keep relating to each other as a couple, not as patient and nurse.  They have another baby. That is joyous but it is more work and more of a reminder of how little he can do as a parent. He is in many respects more dependent than the children. And Jane is exhausted.

Jane’s mother (Emily Watson) has some advice.  She tells Jane to sing in the church choir.  “That is the most English thing anyone has ever said,” Jane replies, but she goes, and as soon as we see the handsome young choir leader, just widowed, (Charlie Cox of “Stardust” as Jonathan), we know there is going to be trouble.  Jonathan, at a loss in his grief, offers to be of help to the family.  He is kind and understanding but he is also healthy and in a beautifully poignant scene at the beach, he runs with the children while Hawking’s wheelchair sinks into the wet sand.

Jonathan and Jane develop feelings for each other.  Hawking and his new nurse Elaine (Maxine Peake) develop feelings for each other.  Perhaps it is because she never sees him as less than a version of himself that is long gone.  Perhaps it is just that he wants Jane to have a chance to be with a healthy man.  Perhaps he knows that there is some parallel universe where they are living happily ever after.  I’d like to think so.

Parents should know that this is a sad movie about a family dealing with a very serious disease.  There are some sexual references.

Family discussion:  Why did Stephen chose that moment to talk about God to Jane?  Why was it important to her?

If you like this, try: “A Beautiful Mind”