CREATION

Despite its earnestness and clear desire to be taken seriously as An Important Period Film, this choppy, often-dull drama misses the mark by ignoring what might actually be interesting to instead focus on a troubled man and his troubled relationship with his troubled family.

Director Jon Amiel (The Core, ‘nuff said) has before him the life and work of Charles Darwin and could have easily made a movie about the theory of evolution – namely, where did it come from? What sparked the idea? But, rather than examine the hows of the man’s groundbreaking, world-altering book (The Origin of the Species), Amiel and screenwriter John Collee opt to follow Darwin (Paul Bettany, who turns in a decent if sometimes overly manic performance) after his book is already underway, and to center the film around the increasing distance between Charles and his wife, Emma (Jennifer Connelly). Tested both by Darwin’s attention to his work and the death of their eldest daughter, Annie (Martha West), their relationship begins to crack, with the fissures getting larger by the day.

Now, a solid family drama would be fine, and one based on Randall Keynes Darwin biography could make sense, but unfortunately Creation drops that ball, as well. Again, the film starts when the problems are already underway and, save for a few flashbacks, we never get to see the crumbling of their union. The audience is presented with a sweaty, ailing lead character, who hallucinates visions of his late daughter and repeatedly chases her “ghost” around the house, into the yard, through the streets, along the beach... so much so that I felt like yelling, “GOT IT!” at the screen after the third or fourth time it happened. These apparitions are brought about because Darwin is overworked and, theorizes one doctor, because he’s not dealt with some trauma from his past (i.e., said daughter’s death). Emma, on the other hand, just seems to mope and shoot concerned glances in her husband’s direction whenever one of his episodes strikes.

While all this is going on, Darwin also finds himself grappling with his belief in science vs. his faith in religion. Toby Jones (Capote) co-stars as Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s colleague and someone who’s so over-the-top enraged with the church that his performance actually comes off as comical, and Jeremy Northam takes up the opposing argument as Reverend Innes, a family friend and (not surprisingly) staunch believer that Darwin’s work amounts to blasphemy.

As the proceedings jump back and forth in time, and wander in and out of Darwin’s imagination, they become repetitive, convoluted and boring. There’s one really beautiful interlude involving a baby orangutan, though, and I wished there had been more of the that sort of thing instead of interpersonal drama. The film could easily have been trimmed by about 20 minutes... or, perhaps, those 20 minutes – made up of things like slow-motion sequences, extended shots and redundant scenes – could have been donated to the front-end of the film to address the origins of Darwin’s Origins. By training its lens on what is essentially one man’s internal (emotional) struggle, the film doesn’t engage the audience as well as it otherwise could.