“If Hawking didn’t exist in real life, a canny screenwriter might have invented him: A sly physics genius who slacked his way through life until given a death sentence, an atheist who wooed and won a devout Anglican co-ed as his wife, a prisoner of his own body whose quicksilver mind let him transcend the heavens above: He is a metaphor in waiting, a real-life inspirational hero finally getting his Hollywood close-up.”