Directed by Jon Amiel
One hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of the Species By Means of Natural Selection. The book still creates controversy today because he pitted science against religion and proposed that instead of God creating all creatures in one week, brute survival over thousands of years was responsible for our evolution. The film is based on Darwin’s great-great-grandson’s book Annies Box, which is about Darwin’s (Paul Bettany) last years of writing his monumental work. It was a time where he was at odds with his deeply religious wife Emma (Bettany’s real life partner Jennifer Connolly) as well as trying to come to terms with his eldest daughter’s death.
Rather than being an expose on his theory of evolution, though there are some interesting snippets that reference it, the film tries to recreate the personal struggles that pushed Darwin to the brink of insanity. While scientists of the day were urging Darwin to publish his research, his faith in science was severely tested as the barbaric medical practices of the time had little effect on his daughter’s increasingly weak condition. Darwin was also riddled with guilt because he felt that it was his marriage to his first cousin that resulted in the deaths of several of their children (as in fact it probably did).
The script for the film was written by Australian screenwriter John Collee, who was also responsible for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World where Bettany, as the ship’s doctor was also a naturalist. Collee said at the launch of the film in Perth that, while some liberties were taken with the actual timeline of events, the film does show that scientists don’t work in isolation from the world. Creation is a moving film that shows a great man wrestling with great ideas and personal traumas.
Lezly Herbert
