8

Near the end of the film The Theory of Everything, Stephen Hawking is invited to meet the Queen and be offered a knighthood. Jane goes along too, although it's not clear to me if the invitation from the Queen was extended to her as well or if Stephen asked her to come along.

This really confuses me, as Jane is not part of Stephen's life at this point in the film. She appears to be living with Jonathan (I'm guessing they are married, since they did marry in real life) and Stephen is involved with his caregiver Elaine. I can't imagine why the Queen would have invited Jane along with Stephen, so why did Stephen invite Jane to go with him rather than Elaine?

I don't know if the answer to this is in the film and I just missed it or if there is some real life reason that didn't get expressed.

Improve this question

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
6

This event represents Stephen Hawking becoming a Companion of Honour. The Guardian film review shed some light into this event and why the two are together:

Hawking was made a Companion of Honour in 1989, but that actually happened before the couple separated.

In other words, the historical reality is that Hawking was made Companion of Honour, and invited to see the Queen, while he was still living with Jane, which would naturally mean she was invited because she was his wife. The following year, the two separated.

In the movie, these events are reversed; first the two separated, then Hawking was made Companion of Honour and brought Jane along for ambiguous reasons. Thus the apparent contradiction is something that was introduced by the script rearranging historical events.

Improve this answer
4

Stephen asked her to come along.

When you see Jane and Jonathan together in their home towards the end of the film, Jonathan hands her a letter noting it's from Stephen, and after reading it you can hear Jane quietly exclaim, "Oh, my!" This makes it pretty clear that the letter is from Stephen himself, he's informing her of his impending knighthood, and has invited her to Buckingham Palace for the event and to meet the Queen.

Throughout the film, Stephen is shown to be an incredibly positive individual given his condition. I took him inviting Jane to Buckingham Palace because he still cares for her as a friend and wanted her to have a happy day with him and their children, who would also be present. Sure she cheated on him, sure they divorced, but they could still be amicable towards each other.

Improve this answer
1
-1

He met the queen in 1989 while the two were still living together so that is why she went. Not sure why the movie made it seem otherwise because they didn't separate until a year after and didn't divorce until 1995. It's unclear whether Jane cheated physically but clearly did love Jonathan as she is currently married to him. It did appeared Stephen also fell in love with Elaine while still with Jane.

Improve this answer
1
  • Welcome to Movies Stack Exchange! While we're glad that you are contributing, this answer is almost identical to existing answers and doesn't add anything new.
    – Thunderforge
    Commented Aug 21, 2015 at 14:59
-2

She did not cheat on him. Perhaps he wanted her to come because of her years of devotion, and the fact that she is the mother of his children.

Improve this answer
2
  • 2
    This is really more of a comment than an answer.
    – MattD
    Commented Jul 22, 2015 at 2:50
  • 2
    Welcome to Movies & TV. You might want to elaborate a bit more on your answer to provide additional information and differentiate it from the already accepted answer that says the same as this one with more explanations
    – Panther
    Commented Jul 22, 2015 at 3:17

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .