Creation

For as long as Darwin has been controversial I'm surprised it took so long to make a film about him, other than documentaries.

Charles Darwin has hit a wall while writing, "Origin of the Species" He is being pushed onward by friends and supporters, and as they push on him, his marriage continues to fall apart as does his fragile psyche. As he tries to write he is haunted by the memories of his daughter who had recently died.

Its hard to explain all that happens in the story because it is simply his descent into a form of madness. He is distraught over the death of his daughter Annie who out of his children is the most like him, and understands the natural world much like he had come to. As he remembers how things went wrong with his daughter his grasp of reality is slipping though his fingers. There are several scenes where he is hallucinating, as well as some very interesting dream sequences.

What I was really impressed by is when Darwin starts to focus on something and it shows how things really work, example: He watches a rat running through a field, it goes into some long grass where there is what is left of a cows skull, we go inside it in a very David Fincher style and see the maggots growing, as time goes by quickly they eat and then are eaten by a bird. The bird accidentally knocks its chick out of the nest and it dies on the ground, alone. It is then eaten.

The classic view of the natural order is the Biblical one where a lion is lying down with a lamb, not only a representation of the natural order but also the religious implications that arise in the New Testament. Jesus is referred to as both a lion and a lamb in the Bible and in other scriptures. As well as he is God, but yet the son of God, etc. So how could he be both the lion and the lamb? This misguided view of nature is deeply ingrained through religion, and is wrong. The world is brutal and unforgiving, and everything is a struggle merely to survive the next day and pass on the genes.

In this we find the conflict going on in Darwin's brain. He wants to believe in God, but he is also a man of science. As he sees truths and facts and reports on them he is essentially refuting the accepted way that things came to be that is described in the Bible. He cant ignore them, they are facts, but he also cant openly believe in them because it goes against so much of what he wants to believe in.

If his daughter died, and there is no God, then where did she go? His wife Emma takes comfort that she will see Annie again, while Darwin is struggling to believe that and has to see her in his waking dreams. Much of his troubles arise from the fact that he married his first cousin, there were things that were wrong with some of his kids that might have been genetic, caused by breeding to close in the family. So it is ironic that he is coming up with the idea that shows how mistaken he was by marrying his cousin, in essence he is removing his genes from the pool by having kids that wont survive. Hes committing his own natural selection.

The cinematography was carefully planned and it showed. Bettany and real life wife as well as movie wife Connelly were terrific in their roles. I wish that Connelly had a bigger part and that we got to know her better. So much of it seemed like they were at odds simply because she wouldn't listen to him, and it was more complex than that. I wish we could have gotten a better handle on her like we do in the end of the film so we could appreciate her more.

I'm disappointed that this wasn't shown in the states, it is British made and went all over but didn't show here. Simply because ignorant people worked hard to get them to not release it here because of the implications of Darwin's ideas. The thing is though is that it is about a mans redemption and acceptance of the way life is, it is in no way at odds with religion. Considering all the stuff that they make here this should have been able to play.

Overall I really enjoyed it, it is not a controversial film by any stretch, and if Ray Charles can get a bio-pic then why not Charles Darwin who was a million times more important than Ray Charles ever will be, no offense Ray, but so is life. It was very well made, and had some really inventive moments. 7/10 stars.

Starring: Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly, Martha West, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jeremy Northam

Director: Jon Amiel