FILM Review: Hawking: a journey through his world – and south London gala screening with live Q&A


From a partying coxswain at Oxford to tabloid headlines and divorce. In true reality style, it seems nothing is off limits

hawking press shot

Say the name Stephen Hawking to most people and you’ll get a response that involves science or disability, or both. The detail will hang on whether they’ve read A Brief History of Time or know anything about motor neurone disease. Most people won’t, but we can all generalise.

Which is why Hawking, a biographical, documentary journeying into Stephen’s world, offers something unique. An intricate portrait of the most famous living scientist of our time, narrated by the man himself and those closest to him.

This surprising and poignant film written and narrated by Hawking himself, and directed by BAFTA nominated Stephen Finnigan, shines a light on the man obsessed with black holes. He’s led an extraordinary life. Filmed in 2012, day-to-day reality is intercut with accounts from his past. From a partying coxswain at Oxford to a young love fool meeting his first wife, from falling ill with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (motor neurone disease) and being given two years to live to the breakdown of his marriage years later and subsequent remarriage, now marred in tabloid headlines and divorce. In true reality style, it seems nothing is off limits.

As well as Hawking’s narrative, there are also interviews with  a host of family members and close friends, including his most long-standing carer, Niki Pidgeon, his first wife Jane Hawking, plus people who knew him as a child and former students. There is also input from various well-known figures in the professor’s life: Buzz Aldrin, with whom he collaborates on advancing humanity’s future in space, Richard Branson, who has offered him a ticket on Virgin Galactic’s first commercial flight and Benedict Cumberbatch, who played Hawking in the 2005 BBC dramatization of his life during his PhD at Cambridge.

Hawking’s sense of humour is a real strength of the film. He’s a man who doesn’t take himself too seriously. It’s easy to see why he’s appeared in an episode of The Simpsons, The Big Bang Theory and co-wrote and performed a sketch with Jim Carrey, who also appears, having become a friend after the skit which went out onr the US TV show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, in 2003.

But it’s his mind that’s the real genius of the man and the film. A mind like no other. A mind, which, as his body and mobility decreases, has strengthened, becoming more remarkable over time. As Hawking scrutinises the origins of the universe, one could more crudely ponder what the restrictions of his illness have meant for his mind. Unsurprisingly, he beats you to it: “It is human nature that we adapt and survive.” And for Hawking, it’s clear survival is science and discovering something no one else has ever realised before is how he has adapted. four stars

Words: Isla Gray

Hawking (PG) is released on 20 September. Picturehouse cinemas are screening the gala premier followed by a Q&A with Professor Stephen Hawking and special guests live via satellite at Brixton, Clapham and Greenwich (and nationwide) on 19 September at 7.20pm. @picturehouses

Watch the trailer below


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