‘Creation’ loose with facts of Darwin’s evolution

Charles Darwin, played by Paul Bettany, has visions in “Creation.”
Darwin is depicted as frail, often ill and uncertain in “Creation.”
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Rating: PG-13

When: Opens today (Landmark La Jolla Village Theatres)

Running time: 1 hr., 48 min.


For most people, Charles Darwin is an old man with dark eyes, deep wrinkles and a long, white beard. He is a faded photo, a two-dimensional portrait without depth, or, let’s be honest, much meaning. Ask someone about Darwin, and they may say he’s the guy who invented evolution. End of conversation.

Last year was the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of his landmark book “On the Origin of Species,” which introduced the theory of evolution. It was a year of abundant celebratory books, treatises, lectures and exhibits. But unless one is seriously interested in the subject or at least paying attention, Darwin the man probably remains a cipher, an unknown entity.

“Creation,” directed by Jon Amiel and written by John Collee, is intended to remedy that, at least a little bit. It is the cinematic tale of Darwin’s personal struggle to convert his copious notes and coalesced thoughts about evolution into the famous book it would become. Darwin knew his work was profoundly important, but he also feared publishing it. He rightfully believed that it would cause controversy, outrage and schism between those who supported a worldview based upon science, logic and reason and those who put their faith in the hands of an unseen Christian god. The consequences of publishing, Darwin feared, would be personal:

“Suppose the whole world stopped believing that God had any sort of plan for us. That nothing mattered: not love, trust, faith, honor. Only brute survival,” says Darwin, played by Paul Bettany, to his daughter Annie in a scene early in the movie. “Apart from anything else, it would break your mother’s heart.”

That’s the Hollywoodesque conceit upon which Amiel and Collee build their movie. It took Darwin more than 20 years to write “Origin of Species.” He was finally spurred to completion by news that another English naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, had independently developed the same evolutionary ideas, albeit not in such great detail. According to the filmmakers, working from the book “Annie’s Box,” written by Randal Keynes, Darwin’s great-great-grandson, Charles Darwin’s struggles to write and finish “Origin of Species” boiled down to two reasons: One, he did not want to disillusion and disappoint his devout wife, Emma (Jennifer Connelly). And two, he was a physical and mental wreck following the death of his 10-year-old Annie (Martha West), who was his soul mate.

History — and the truth — is more complicated, of course. But this is a movie, not even a documentary, and it’s not possible to squeeze in all of the essential factors, events and influences that actually determined and dictated Darwin’s life and work. Instead, the movie juggles, reorders and conflates scenes for cinematic effect, emphasizing emotional elements over those of mere history or fact. Darwin is depicted as decidedly human, frail and uncertain. It is too much at times. Bettany, with shaved head and grandiose mutton chops, is frequently overwrought, constantly ravaged by illnesses (real or imagined) and regular ghostly visitations by Annie. When he writes, his hands tremble and his brow sweats. He has visions of lab specimens coming back to life. This is a Gothic soap opera set in Victorian England.

There are inaccuracies. Annie was not Darwin’s eldest child. “Origin of Species” was not his first book, but his ninth. Darwin grieved for Annie, but her death was not the sole reason for his eventual rejection of Christianity, or at least the idea of a beneficent Providence.

But that said, “Creation” is a laudable effort to explore a man whose ideas changed everything. The movie grapples with concepts that still resonate, that still cause controversy, outrage and schism. It does not tiptoe around the subject of religion, but attempts to present a complexity of views.

“Creation” doesn’t fully explain Darwin, but it’s a good beginning.