An old review (from the New Statesman, Oct, 2007) of Stuart a Life Backwards which I think captures some of what is so great about this extraordinary film:
Benedict Cumberbatch as the posh, slightly nerdy Masters and Tom Hardy as the slurring, staggering (he had muscular dystrophy, on top of everything else) Stuart. Cumberbatch is a scene stealer of such prowess that he can nick an entire movie from its star with a handful of lines (if you don’t believe me, see Starter for Ten, whose lead, supposedly, is James McAvoy). Here, however, his performance was deliberately tamped down. He brought Masters alive with the smallest of tics - slow-blinking myopic eyes , the odd wry look - and managed to avoid making him seem like a patronising prig, a serious danger, given how little time he had to establish his character.
It was Hardy, though, who broke your heart. I can’t remember the last time I saw a performance as convincing as this. Usually, when actors take on “extreme” roles - think Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot- you can see the hard labour that has gone into the acting, and it’s exhausting; part of you just wants to shout: “Oh, speak properly, for God’s sake!” Not here. Hardy was Stuart, and every time he was on screen - which was most of the time - 1 was mesmerised. The clumpy feet, the low-slung trousers, the way his expression changed in a moment, like the sun going behind the clouds: it was all there, almost as if the real Stuart had come back to remind us all what middle-class “scum ponces” we are, with our futile liberal guilt and our lazy assumptions and our need to have a good cry in front of the television on a Sunday night.
![[Stuart a Life Backwards] concludes ambiguously, reporting that the body of the tottering, wasted waif has been found on a railway line; the character’s end cannot be dramatised because there were no witnesses.
This did not absolve Hardy from having to imagine how it might have happened. ‘Did Stuart off himself? I just can’t believe it, maybe because I got to love him while I was being him. I walked along that path beside the track in Cambridge; it’s very narrow and he was so frail. I think he just toppled over or got drawn in by the wind from the train. All his injuries were on one side, which suggests it was an accident. His life was such a gift, despite everything he’d suffered. I’m not comfortable believing that he threw it away. He’s an odd superhero, but that’s what he was for me. He made me grow and he made me think about what I want with my career.’
- Tom about playing Stuart Shorter. I can’t begin to express how much I love this film. It’s a film I wish everybody would see. Both because of the story and to see the most amazing acting to ever grace a screen.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0kzokklLI1qe5f96o1_r1_250.gif)
![“This is the best thing I’ve ever been involved in, it is epic in its humanity and not sentimental in the least,” says Tom [Hardy]. “It was so important to do it properly - we’re deconstructing the stigma around homelessness and drug addiction. I’m lucky that I didn’t have too much of a stretch to understand Stuart’s pain as there has been drinking and drugs and violence in my own life.
“I think it’s a story of hope - Stuart lived every second as though it was his last and his light burnt very brightly. He’s not with us any more, it’s a huge loss.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxhcfnV8gF1qe5f96o1_1280.jpg)
