Based on "Annie's Box," -- a biography penned by Charles Darwin's great-great-grandson Randal Keynes, using personal letters and diaries of the Darwin family-- "Creation" takes a unique and inside look at Darwin, his family and his love for his deeply religious wife, Torn between faith and science, Darwin struggles to finish his legendary book "On the Origin of Species," which goes on to become the foundation for evolutionary biology.
"Creation" is a film about the way this disagreement played out in Darwin's marriage. Charles and Emma were married from 1830 until his death in 1882. They had 10 children, seven of whom survived to beget descendants who even today have reunions. They loved one another greatly. Darwin at first avoided spelling
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After Annie's con Darwin becomes a shell of a man, having lost his great taste for nature as well as his faith, not only in the religion to which he was raised, but faith in himself and his relationship with his wife (a solid performance by Jennifer Connelly), who took the alternate tack of falling further into religion, using it as a crutch to keep her sorrow at bay. Proceeding at a slow pace, the film gives ample time to contemplate the issues at hand, and does a masterful job of weaving and connecting the concepts and stories. Annie has a favorite tale that she frequently requests her father to tell: that of Jennie, the first orangutan in captivity. Darwin weaves this tale, giving the ape a great deal of humanity, telling Annie that Jennie was just as curious about the strange creatures gaping at her as the people were upon seeing her for the first time. The story of Jennie is broken into segments, as other themes and stories are told; but eventually it is revealed that there is a distinct similarity between the story of Jennie and Annie. Truly interesting in this period piece is that while Darwin and the science of the 1850's are making great strides towards the understanding of connectivity and several other issues, the medical field is seemingly entrenched in the middle