Creation

Featuring riveting performances from real-life couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, Creation – the opening night film at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival® – is a profoundly humanist rendering of the story of a man whose scientific ideas famously and irrevocably changed the world.

It’s 1858 and Charles Darwin (Bettany, The Young Victoria, The Secret Life of Bees) has returned from his far-flung geological explorations on the HMS Beagle to settle into a quiet life in the British countryside. He begins to work on On the Origin of Species, destined to become perhaps the most widely read book of natural science. In it, he outlines his theory of evolution through natural selection, inspired by discoveries about the transmutation of species that dispelled the prevailing religious beliefs of the day.

Rather than merely recount these well-known details of Darwin’s life, however, director Jon Amiel explores the hypothesis that history is written more by the inner workings of the human heart than by a strict adherence to scientific fact. Darwin and his religious, God-fearing wife, Emma (Connelly, Little Children, A Beautiful Mind), lost their first daughter, Annie (a feisty and charming Martha West), to illness when she was nine years old. Darwin fought to overcome his guilt and grief while trying to cope with his increasing estrangement from Emma, who in turn watched with sadness and horror as her husband grew more ill by the day and distanced himself from his four remaining children.

An ongoing imaginary conversation between Darwin and daughter Annie provides the thematic and structural thread of Creation, as she leads her bereaved father to eventual catharsis so he can persevere with his now legendary work. Her unwavering commitment to her father’s revolutionary ideas is testament to our continued need to reconcile heart and brain, faith and science, love and the life we lead in its wake.



CRITICAL NOTES

“Thoughtful [and] moving, and Bettany is brilliant. To be reminded of the power of love to redeem and repair, catch Creation.” – Empire Magazine
FILM INFORMATION

Director: Jon Amiel
Cast: Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly, Jeremy Northam, Toby Jones, Benedict Cumberbatch, Martha West
Year: 2009
Runtime: 108 minutes
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
Distributor: D Films


Ratings: ON NR / BC NR / AB NR / SK NR / MB NR / QC NR / Maritmes NR

SCREENING DATES AND TIMES 

Jan 23, 2010 
Circuit Centre: Salmon Arm
Province: British Columbia
Circuit Group Name: Shuswap Film Society
Venue:Salmar Classic Theatre
Where else is this film screening in Film Circuit?

UPCOMING FILMS IN Salmon Arm
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09/18/2010 Please Give
09/25/2010 Secret in Their Eyes
10/02/2010 Kids Are All Right
10/06/2010 Exit Through the Gift Shop
10/09/2010 Get Low
10/16/2010 I Am Love
10/23/2010 Winter's Bone