Darwin's angst at 'Creation's' heart

On one level, “Creation” is the story behind one of the most important and controversial books the world has ever seen, “On the Origin of Species.” On another, it is a deeply personal story, caring far more about the details of the author’s heart and the long and agonizing journey he undertook to make public the single most provocative scientific idea in history.

“Creation” is a surprisingly moving and emotional film, told with historical fidelity and a welcome incongruity that makes room for both a restrained historical palate and a weird and wonderful visual verve.

Though we get a couple of flashbacks of the HMS Beagle plowing through the sea, encountering exotic natives and dispatching its young, untried naturalist to the auspicious Galapagos archipelago, the film spends nearly all of its time and resources on a sickly, middle-aged Charles Darwin (Paul Bettany), his devout wife, Emma (played by Bettany’s real-life wife, Jennifer Connelly, riveting) and Annie (Martha West), their eldest daughter and the apple of her father’s eye. Darwin takes Annie and her siblings on nature walks, fills her head with stories of his adventures, and finds in her his greatest pupil.

When Annie succumbs to illness and death, Darwin is emotionally and spiritually blasted. He walks out on God and watches helplessly as a wall goes up between him and Emma, a wall that was already under construction following his assertions that evolution, not God, was responsible for the biological shape of our planet.

“You are at war with God,” Emma tells him. “We both know it is a war you cannot win.”

Darwin must decide what is most important: his health, his wife’s regard or the dissemination of discoveries that will alter the course of history itself.

The superb Bettany is, as usual, more than up to the task of playing (as he did in “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”) a man who stands up for science and reason in the face of superstition and ignorance. However, his degenerative, sickly condition makes him difficult to get close to or engage with.

Relief is granted in the character of Annie, a vivacious, effervescent girl who grounds the film and makes us care about both the man and his mission. Annie remains on screen even after her death, transforming into her father’s invisible conscience, an intellectual sparring partner who is our most obvious example of his conflicted soul, even as we understand his voracious need to keep her near.

Director Jon Amiel illustrates the beautiful cruelty of nature as well as Darwin’s tortured state through old-fashioned, clever camera tricks, as well as impressionistic, hallucinogenic sequences. We watch the circle of life play itself out in stunning time-lapse photography reminiscent of those PBS documentaries your parents force-fed you as a child. We are treated to surreal visualizations of Darwin’s ragged soul as his study, suddenly a chamber of horrors, comes to life. Rather than simply exposit that our protagonist is torn between his love for his religiously pious wife and his own solidifying belief in a world no longer requiring God as an explanatory feature, “Creation” literally shows us the collision of faith and reason. It refashions instantly recognizable Christian iconography — such as Michelangelo’s Sistine moment of creation — into something at once perverted, satirical and, frankly, beautiful.

CREATION

Cast: Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly, Martha West, Jeremy Northam, Benedict Cumberbatch, Toby Jones

Director: Jon Amiel

Theater: Kimball’s

Rated: PG-13 (for some intense thematic material)

Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes

GRADE: B+