From entertainment reporter Kimberly Roots:

Charles Darwin’s passion for nature, for chasing the dips and pirouettes of evolution, is as commonplace as frog dissection to anyone who’s ever taken a high school biology class. But the makers of Creation, the new biopic dealing with the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, wisely chose to frame this passion in the context of something else of dire importance to the famous scientist: his love for his family. Darwin’s legacy is stronger for it.
Based on Annie’s Box, a biography by the scientist’s great-great-grandson, Randal Keynes, Creation centers on Darwin’s home life following the unexpected death of his eldest child, Annie. Thrown into deep depression and paralyzed by grief, Paul Bettany’s Darwin tries to continue to develop his theory of evolution but is plagued by mysterious illnesses and hallucinations of his precocious child (the perfectly cast newcomer Martha West). Both are induced by guilt made all the worse by the cold crevice that exists between Darwin and wife Emma, a devout Anglican Christian sure her husband’s work will damn him for eternity.
The film’s sentiment is strong, its visuals even stronger. Simple scenes of particles floating in the sunlight or of luminescence trailing behind the Beagle take on an added luster when contrasted with Darwin’s talk of “brute survival.” After he writes Emma a letter apologizing for his loss of faith, we immediately flash back to an outing where Charles and the children walk through the forest. The quiet, the colors, the way Darwin reverently crouches down to watch a kill-or-be-killed moment between two animals drives home the point: He hasn’t lost faith at all, merely found it somewhere Victorian society was unwilling to look.
But you’ll want to look deeply at the science in Creation; it’s presented in such splendor that even a bird’s sped-up decomposition is captivating. Darwin’s theory is so elegant, his pursuit of it so pure, that the religion of the times—evidenced by Emma’s frowns and the local pastor’s emphatic sermons—seems a mismatched opponent. Darwin may not have “killed God,” as Thomas Huxley (Toby Jones) excitedly states at the beginning of the film, but he’s certainly given believers something to think about.
The decision to cast Bettany and Jennifer Connelly as the Darwins was a sound one. The pair, married in real life, shares a shorthand that translates well on screen. This makes the narrative’s frequent flashbacks simply a glimpse of happier times rather than the only evidence we have of their long relationship. Emma’s words are often harsh—as when she implores her husband to drop his work so they may spend eternity together in heaven—but Connelly manages to soften the delivery so we see her as a woman who truly fears being without the man she loves. “I think you are at war with God, Charles,” she tells him, angry and afraid. “We both know it is a battle you cannot win.” Bettany, in turn, does a very good job as a man who can’t please anyone and who is very nearly a victim of his own feelings of failure. Darwin’s frustration and self-perceived weakness roll off him in waves.
The movie builds to a cathartic moment for its protagonist, and script writer John Collee posits this relief was necessary for Darwin’s seminal work to go forward. But by that point, publication of On the Origin of Species seems almost secondary; Creation’s Darwin is someone audiences will want to see not only survive, but thrive.