Creation

You will walk out of Creation feeling a lot smarter than when you walked in. That's not really a comment on the availability of the film as a mass market commodity so much as a sign that this film works with ideas. Creation stars Paul Bettany as Charles Darwin and chronicles the writing and publication of The Origin of the Species.
Directed by Jon Amiel - a director who has been absent as of late but was very much the thing 20 years ago with Singing Detective and Queen of Hearts - Creation wavers between beautifully visualized imagery and intimate dramatic scenes that try to re-imagine the conflict going on in the marriage of Charles and Emma (Jennifer Connelly) Darwin. There's some strong tension in various scenes between Bettany and Connelly (married in real life). Another scene depicts scientific allies of the time Thomas Huxley and Joseph Hooker (a confidant Toby Jones and Benedict Cumberbatch) haranguing Darwin to go even further in the direction of declaring "God is dead."
Film appropriately starts out with Darwin recalling his expedition to the Galapagos Islands, where he trades beads and buttons for three native children that are taken back to England. Likewise another parable-like recollection involves an orangutan that dies in the care of the London Zoo. One of the Darwin's daughters has died and we see her in flashbacks but also as a figment of Charles' imagination. These moments in particular have a emotional zeal that help define this film. And that's good because that narrative twist otherwise seems too close to the imaginary figure Bettany played in A Beautiful Mind. Another moment in Creation, one where the couple make love after months of arguing (over religious issues) and find the inspiration to continue on the publication of the visionary book curiously reminded me of a similar moment in JFK where Costner and Spacek have been arguing but reunite in lovemaking upon hearing of RFK's assassination. Creation does seem to waver between moments such as these and loftier images like the following.
We see a bird fall from a nest unto the ground below and the action slows to reveal the course of nature in time-lapse motion. We see grass grow through the bird's now decomposing body. Reminds of a Brothers Quay short film. Creation would be worth seeing just for this sequence alone. The film as a whole will certainly appeal to fans of 19th century science while the pacing will keep short attention spanners at bay.