You can tell a quality project by the company it keeps. Produced by Jeremy Thomas (one of modern cinema’s greatest architects) and bejewelled with supporting actors one would happily watch in dog food commercials - Jeremy Northam, Toby Jones, Benedict Cumberbatch – Creation is a fitting birthday tribute to The Origin of the Species’ upcoming 150th anniversary.
Based on Annie’s Box, Randal Keynes’ impossibly heartbreaking biographical study of his great-great grandfather Charles Darwin’s unending grief for a lost daughter, this classic tearjerker never errs on the saccharine side, despite the improbably glamorous presence of Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly playing Charles and his wife Emma.
A necessary corrective to the demonised view of Darwin that has, sadly, taken hold in the US, Creation presents a dramatically engaging, thoughtful, historically precise account of the evolution of Darwin’s famous theory. Struggling to cope with the death of his precious eldest daughter, our learned protagonist is torn between the rational truths that must be told and love for his deeply Christian wife.
Mr. Bettany is a revelation in the central role, though inevitably the picture has already run into trouble with America’s barmy creationist constituency; the film has yet to find a distributor in the US and has come under fire from the sorts of lunatics who believe dinosaur bones are a divine prank. Logic rules! Get out there and support this fine portrait of a heroic scientist and all-round good guy.