Last night went to see "Creation", the new movie about the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. It's more a biographical study of Darwin's family life, particularly the relationship with his wife and children following the unexpected death of his daughter. Decided I don't want to write a review that tries to be cleverly critical of the film 's technical aspects - not my thing anayway; or that attempts to explain the psychology of guilt which when it becomes pathological, is a deeply human and inwardly destructive self-rejection that has roots in life circumstance, our closest relationships and our religious commitments or loss thereof; or that points out the historical liberties taken in order to present such a powerful psychological study of a decade in one man's life; or that defends some particular theory of creation as an act of apologetics dutifully undertaken to correct the theological unsubtleties of some less than convincing intellectual positions.
No. No review.
Just the straightforward admission that I enjoyed it, and that in my view this is a good film. It humanises rather than demonises Darwin; it does not caricature the understandbaly defensive postures of Victorian religion confronted by radical shifts in intellectual, cultural and scientific life; it places the writing of a painstakingly written natural history treatise in its historical, emotional and domestic context; and it does all this with the well practised competence of a BBC costume drama, which in reality it is. No review than - other than to say again, I thoroughly enjoyed it, in the way you do when you take time to try to understand what is so about another person's life, and that the struggle to survive isn't only a theory of life's origins - emotionally, intellectually, spiritually and physically it's the reality and experience we all go through, every day of life.
Comments