Could This Be the Movie That Will Finally Make Me Care About Eddie Redmayne?

Literally every day someone on my Twitter timeline proclaims their adoration for Eddie Redmayne, and I am always surprised by it. Is it his British accent? Or the fact that he played the empathetic Marius in the most recent version of Les Mis or Marilyn Monroe's puppy dog superfan documentarian in My Week with Marilyn? I mean, WHAT is the appeal? While he was decent in Les Mis, I tend to find him generally forgettable. So when I received a press release last week about his latest movie, a biopic on theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, I didn't jump to read it.

Flash forward a few days later to this morning when I finally bit the bullet and checked out the movie, intriguingly titled THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the trailer. Also, it made me interested to learn more about Hawking, the man who Redmayne is portraying here who at the age of 21 was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. Co-starring Felicity Jones (another actor who has yet to make an impression on me), the movie is part romance, part nerd drama, and part tearjerking Oscar bait (don't deny it). But what I was most impressed by was how Redmayne has seemingly melted into this particularly difficult role. More on the movie below:

Starring Eddie Redmayne ("Les Misérables") and Felicity Jones ("The Amazing Spider-Man 2"), this is the extraordinary story of one of the world's greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde. Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21 years of age. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of - time. Together, they defy impossible odds, breaking new ground in medicine and science, and achieving more than they could ever have dreamed. The film is based on the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, by Jane Hawking, and is directed by Academy Award winner James Marsh ("Man on Wire").

Watch the trailer:

So maybe I'll become a Redmayne fan yet (just don't look for pictures of him pinned to my Pinterest boards). THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month, and will hit select cities starting November 7th. 

Thoughts?