A story about physics isn’t going to appeal to everyone, but I found this absolutely fascinating! Before Einstein developed the theory of General Relativity (think space as a sheet, loaf of bread ‘sun’ in the middle pulling the sheet down, and apple rolling around the distortion), Newton’s law of gravity was king – to the point that it was like religious ferver, this belief.

Far from being a dry scientific tale, though, E&E brought a lot of the background into the story. This was the time of the first world war; science was being abused to find new ways to kill the enemy, much to the digust of Albert Einstein (Andy Serkis).

Across on the other side of it all, an English scientist by the name of Arthur Eddington (David Tennant) – unfairly lost to history, really – is tasked with reading the work of this German, see if anything looks like a threat. Instead, Eddington starts to question the validity of Newton’s work, and wonders if Einstein has it right – alas, a question of immense scientific importance he’s not allowed to ask because the proposer is German. I can’t get across the power of this in the film: men of science, supposedly open minded and in search of the truth, stymied by war and politics and heart-wrenching emotional traumas.

What I wasn’t so sure of was the snippets of the two men’s personal lives thrown in to add to the drama element of the piece. Is it important that Einstein was having an affair, or that Eddington was gay? Hmm.

Overall, though, this was a brilliant reminder that science IS important, IS worthwhile, and often comes through immense struggle. It also brings the name of Arthur Eddington back from obscurity – which he deserves, as without the Englishman willing to put his neck on the line defending and proving German theories, we might still be ignorant of the Big Bang, Black Holes, and everything else that came from Relativity theory.