Creation, directed by Jon Amiel, is a biopic of Charles Darwin (played by Paul Bettany) during the time when he had writer’s cramp. Although he had completed all the research required to eventually 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 start the book that was eventually sold out on 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 would make God no longer responsible for the flora and fauna of the planet. He and his spouse Emma (played by Jennifer Connelly) are estranged, and she appears to side with the Innes. He also exhibits psychosomatisms, such as a trembling hand. Alfred Russell Wallace, who first articulated the concept of natural selection, surprises him by sending Darwin a twenty-page essay on the theory during 1858, but still does not get him off his duff to write. But the real reason for his inability to write is psychological, buried in a past event that haunts him, awaiting a mental exorcism before the development of psychiatry. Based on the book Annie's Box (2001) by Randal Keynes, Creation is a film that will try the patience of filmviwers who are unaccustomed to slow-moving plots. MH
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