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Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

It is 1978, and two men are waiting to collect their Noble Prize in Physics in Sweden. Arno Penzias (Michael Brandon) and Robert Wilson (Tom Hodgkins) were preparing to give a television interview before they are due to collect their prize. The interview with the journalist (Christian Rubeck) would be about how a hissing sound they discovered inside a huge satellite receiver won them the Nobel Prize.It would intercut with a seemingly unrelated event from 15 years before in 1963 in England where Stephen Hawking (Benedict Cumberbatch) was celebrating his 21st birthday. He was actually watching Fred Hoyle (Peter Firth) talking about his steady state theory on television, before he went into another room where his birthday party was held in his house after the programme ended. He was delighted to see the girl he had met from another party Jane Wilde (Lisa Dillon) in the room. They would later go out to the back garden and discuss about the sky while lying down. But when Stephen tried to get up later on, he could not do so. Jane had initially thought Stephen was joking with her before she became worried and went to get help.Stephen would come to find himself being put through a series of tests at the hospital's operating theatre. The following day, as the nurse was moving his pillow causing him to lean forward, Stephen noticed a young boy across him where he would learn the boy was 12 years of age and had leukemia. When Stephen woke up the next day, the boy was no longer there as he learned that the boy had died the night before. Stephen would run into his doctor who tells him he has Motor Neuron Disease, which would cause anxiety all around and even in the family for his parents Frank (Adam Godley) and Isobel (Phoebe Nicholls).Later in the same year, Stephen would be studying at Trinity Hall at Cambridge where he would begin his first year as a doctoral student where he would be tutored under Dennis Sciama (John Sessions). It was also when he would come to publicly challenge Hoyle on his steady state theory with his student Jayant Narlikar (Rohan Siva) which would lead to what he come to produce in his dissertation as partly inspired by what another professor Roger Penrose (Tom Ward) had taught.Those who has a deep interest in science will take an interest in this, especially for what the real Stephen Hawking would come to be known. The average audience will not be able to understand much of the concepts as explained in the television movie as it will look abstract to the. Thus for the average audience, they may not be able to understand why there are times the scenes of showing Hawking during his Cambridge days intercuts with the television interview Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson was doing, even if it would be explained towards the ending on the screen on what the two men in real life would receive the Nobel Prize in Physics for.But for everyone else, it is a reminder of the real Stephen Hawking's early path to his scientific greatness as he would come to challenge Fred Hoyle on what he had proposed, or as Hawking said in the television movie, "We are very very small. But we are profoundly capable of very very big things."

This is one of those movies that can wake you up and make you wonder what you've achieved with your life so far.It's one of the best performances of the year, the sort of performance that is the actors were American and got the right publicity would have most likely landed them an Oscar. Given the subject I was expecting cringe worthy moments in the film, or at least overly sentimental, but Cumberbatchs' performance as a young Hawking just finding out what his symptoms mean is really something else. This isn't a movie for somebody that is looking for a comedy but I think that you should watch it if you are interested in either the life of Stephen Hawking or just to see a film that is different than the mainstream. It's definitely worth watching!

For those perhaps shy of this film thinking it may be grim or depressing -- it's quite the opposite. It's about Hawking in his early years -- getting his doctorate at Cambridge in the early 1960s, long before incapacitation set in.This is Hawking in his green and wide-eyed youth, when he was just starting to wrap his mind around the amazing theories that changed theoretical physics and astrophysics. The film is joyful and uplifting and engaging and intriguing. It's not esoteric, and can certainly be followed by non-physicists such as myself.And in case you've been under a rock lately, Benedict Cumberbatch is the finest young actor in the UK, and gives an unmissable performance, as usual.Highly recommended for everyone!

I saw the movie yesterday on French television and I was very impressed by the performance of the main actor: Benedict Cumberbatch. I did not know him but I think he made a great job playing Hawking.and his performance has been recognized since he got a price for this part. I am absolutely not fond of physics or such things but the story of this man mattered much to me than the subject of the film in itself (the proof of the existence of a big bang). I admired the courage of this man , brilliant mind, to fight against this disease and for his ideas.I really enjoyed this movie despite its very late at night diffusion and I hope all actors are still doing well in their jobs. I rated an 8, which is a very good mark to me.