Creation: movie review
Charles Darwin鈥檚 family life and inner struggles are explored in 'Creation,' a look at the man behind 'The Origin of Species.'
In 鈥淐reation,鈥� Charles Darwin the man takes precedence over Charles Darwin the scientist. In a better movie, these two aspects would not appear so far apart. Typically, Hollywood biographies of famous people attempt to show us the 鈥渞eal鈥� man or woman behind the legendary achievements. The most egregious example of this was 鈥淎madeus,鈥� where Mozart was portrayed as a goofy, dirty-minded buffoon who just happened to be a genius.
Since Darwin is known to most people solely from his photo as the bearded, stern-faced eminence behind 鈥淭he Origin of Species,鈥� the filmmakers behind 鈥淐reation,鈥� in attempting to give us the 鈥渞eal鈥� Darwin, are practically inventing the wheel 鈥� or at least creating a new one.
Darwin (Paul Bettany) is presented to us mostly in his pre-鈥淥rigin鈥� days as a man in his 40s distraught to the point of despair over the death in 1851 of his beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie (Martha West). Director Jon Amiel 鈥� working from a screenplay by John Collee based on the book 鈥淎nnie鈥檚 Box鈥� by Darwin descendant Randal Keynes 鈥� goes in for a lot of ethereal father-daughter flashbacks. Annie, who also appears in the movie as a kind of ghost, shared the great scientist鈥檚 love of naturalist observation. (If you鈥檙e a fan of baby orangutans, look no further than this movie.) By fashioning Darwin鈥檚 observations through the prism of his daughter鈥檚 presence, the filmmakers are both humanizing and sentimentalizing him. They bring his genius down to earth. 鈥淐reation鈥� is saying: Great men of science can suffer the same as us mere mortals.
In making Darwin pathologically despondent for much of the movie, the film overcorrects the clich茅 that rationality and passion are mutually exclusive. It doesn鈥檛 help that Darwin鈥檚 wife and first cousin, Emma (Jennifer Connelly, who is Bettany鈥檚 real-life wife), comes across as a bitter scold. Dealing with the aftermath of Annie鈥檚 death strengthened her religious faith while it helped dismantle his. Better than the scenes between Darwin and Emma are the ones between him and his clergyman friend the Rev. Innes (Jeremy Northam). They鈥檙e like intellectual wrestling matches, with Darwin always getting the pin.
But at least Darwin is wrestling with his faith, as opposed to, say, his friend Thomas Huxley (Toby Jones), who happily predicts that the publication of 鈥淥rigin鈥� will 鈥渒ill God.鈥� On the whole, though, 鈥淐reation鈥� doesn鈥檛 delve deeply into the whole faith versus science thing, nor does it make much explicit reference to contemporary creationist controversies. The film is content to present itself as a self-enclosed period piece, a character study and not a polemic. As such, it鈥檚 rather staid and old-fashioned, despite its jumbled chronology and dreamlike flashbacks.
The film is never less than intelligent and never more than accomplished. I wish it subverted not only our commonplace conception of Darwin but also the era in which he lived. The reclusive, famished Darwin of this movie at times resembles nothing so much as the John Keats of 鈥淏right Star.鈥� Bettany knows how to suffer romantically 鈥� or to be more precise, Romantically. In the end, I half expected him to produce 鈥淥de on a Grecian Urn鈥� rather than 鈥淭he Origin of Species.鈥� Grade: B- (Rated PG-13 for some intense thematic material.)