Creation (PG). Director: John Amiel. Starring: Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly, Toby Jones, Jeremy Northam, Martha West. 108 minutes
One hundred and fifty years after its publication, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, as articulated in his opus The Origin of Species, underpins mainstream science and animates debate among scientific and religious communities. The BBC backed biopic Creation, based on the biography Annie's Box written by Darwin's great-great-grandson Randal Keynes, highlights a similarly heated dialogue occurring for Darwin on a deeply personal level.
Darwin (Bettany) is a man of decimated faith. The cause of the decimation was the death of his eldest daughter, Annie (West), whose ghost visits him throughout the film. The delusional Darwin seeks advice and comfort from this apparition of a child who, in life, had a curiosity about and fascination with life and the world that reflected his own.
Darwin is a man who is well aware that his obsessive pet theory has the potential to destabilise the devoutly religious 19th century English society in the midst of which his work takes place. This potential is highlighted none too subtly by biologist Thomas Huxley (Jones) — nicknamed 'Darwin's Bulldog' for his advocacy for Darwin's evolutionary theory — who early in the film congratulates a horrified Darwin for having successfully killed God.
This notion seems to terrify and haunt Darwin. Despite his scientific convictions and his professed lack of faith, the idea of 'killing God' causes him great anguish. In one scene, after a night spent scribbling his manuscript, he is shown frantically scrubbing at the ink stains on his fingers — Lady Macbeth trying to remove mythical blood.
His anxieties are exacerbated by the concerns of two devoutly religious people in his life, his wife, Emma (Connelly), and his once close friend, Rev. Innes (Northam). Darwin's marriage is strained by his and Emma's failure to confront their grief over Annie's death; Darwin's planned sleight against religion intensifies the tension.
His relationship with Innes, meanwhile, suffered its greatest blow when (we learn in flashback) Innes punished Annie at school for repeating her father's theories.
The film is kind to all parties, except perhaps to the callous scientist Huxley, whom Jones portrays as an arrogant, spitting villain. It is certainly unrelentingly sympathetic to Darwin; almost overbearing in its efforts to portray him (his semi-regular dips into madness and his obsession with quack medical
cures) as a broken and troubled man.
The film's apparent unwillingness to cause