Creation

A biopic, Creation, directed by Jon Amiel, is about Charles Darwin (played by Paul Bettany) during the time when he had writer’s cramp. Although he had completed all the research required to publish his On the Origin of Species (1859), and he was encouraged if not goaded by Joseph Hooker (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) and Thomas Huxley (played by Tony Jones), he is unable to move his pen to finish the book that was eventually sold out on the day of its publication. The preacher in town, the Reverend Innes (played by Jeremy Northam), discourages him from writing, knowing that acceptance of his ideas made God less responsible for the flora and fauna of the planet. He and his spouse Emma (played by Jennifer Connelly) are estranged, and she sides with Innes. Darwin also exhibits psychosomatisms, notably a trembling hand. Alfred Russell Wallace, who articulated the concept of natural selection in a twenty-page essay during 1858, surprises him but still does not get Darwin off his duff to write. The real reason for his inability to write is psychological, buried in an event that haunts him, awaiting a mental exorcism. Based on the book Annie’s Box (2001) by Randal Keynes, the film much too slowmoving.  MH

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