My degeneration

The Theory of Everything

Crit

The convenient thing in making a film about history's second-most-famous ALS sufferer is that your narrative arc draws itself: promise, then tragedy, then tragic heroism, then triumph. The only surprise here is that a biography of someone so cosmically ambitious could itself be so atomically unambitious, not counting the ambition to rack up a few Oscar nominations via the time-tested route of the afflicted-guy movie.

Wait, I take that back: I had a huge surprise even before the film started: my MoviePass worked!