In 1919, a solar-eclipse expedition on Príncipe becomes a centerpiece for a story that braids scientific boldness with the upheavals of war. The mission, led by David Tennant as Arthur Eddington, strands itself between the immediate aftermath of World War I and earlier tensions dating back to 1914, when Jim Broadbent—I mean jim-broadbent—Sir Oliver Lodge appoints Eddington as chief astronomer at Cambridge to defend Newtonian order while quietly engaging with the revolutionary ideas of Andy Serkis as Albert Einstein. In Berlin, Einstein is drawn back to the Prussian Academy of Sciences and becomes entangled in the war effort, a move that inflames national pride and scientific rivalry; his relationship with his cousin Elsa Jodhi May deepens as personal and professional stakes rise.
The film follows Eddington as a Quaker who cannot bear arms, balancing faith and duty while bidding farewell to William Marston Patrick Kennedy, who goes off to war. After a narrow miss with Marston’s train, Eddington returns to his lecture circuit, defending Newton in a time of upheaval, and offers shelter to the Müller family whose members are threatened by anti-German backlash. Meanwhile, Einstein’s marriage strains under the strain of his affairs; his wife leaves him as a wave of protests erupts against scientists who seem to ally with the war effort. Einstein himself recoils from a violent demonstration related to Fritz Haber’s gas experiments, ultimately refusing to renounce his German citizenship and declining to sign a manifesto that would align scientists with the war.
Yet the narrative keeps returning to the scientific thread. Eddington confronts a British ban on German scientific literature, which complicates his study of the planet Mercury’s orbit. He reaches out to Einstein for insight, a gesture that draws Einstein into a collaboration with Max Planck [Donald Sumpter], who consoles a bereaved colleague while continuing his work. Together, their theoretical line-up—grounded in relativity and the bending of light by gravity—begins to match planetary observations in a way Newtonian theory cannot. The pair’s exchange, carried through Planck, helps Eddington see a path forward despite censorship and suspicion at home.
Across the wartime toll, Eddington mourns losses—most notably the gas attacks that claim many lives at Ypres—yet this grief galvanizes him to defend a plural scientific community rather than surrender to fear. Lodge, whose own son lies among the dead, clings to Newton as a cosmic anchor, but Eddington cannot admit the depth of his sorrow, even as Einstein’s public outburst isolates him from his university. Einstein, increasingly exhausted, falls ill, and Elsa temporarily withdraws, yet the work persists. Einstein completes a theory of general relativity, outlining how gravity curves spacetime and how starlight bends, and passes his results back to Eddington through Planck. With renewed purpose, Eddington secures funding for the expedition to prove Einstein’s predictions, aided by allies like Dyson, despite Lodge’s initial opposition.
The Príncipe expedition finally proceeds, delayed only by weather, as Einstein briefly returns to his ex-wife and children before a climactic reckoning. Bringing back two photographs from the eclipse, Eddington compares them against photographs taken under normal conditions, presenting the data before Lodge and the faithful Winifred, the latter depicted here through Rebecca Hall. The result is not only a vindication of Einstein’s theory but a resurgence of faith for Eddington, who proclaims, in a moment of awe, that he can hear God thinking. The news ripples through the world’s press as Elsa makes her way back to Einstein, and a year later, Einstein visits Cambridge to reconnect with Eddington. In the closing shots, the film reflects on both scientists’ later paths: Einstein’s enduring fame and Eddington’s enduring obscurity, a testament to how science can illuminate the cosmos even as it unsettles the beliefs that people hold most dear. > I can hear God, thinking
