BUFS Preview

Jon Amiel's Creation, up next at BUFS, tells the story of Charles Darwin and the publication of On the Origin of Species as described in the biography Annie's Box: Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution, written by Darwin's great-great-grandson, Randal Keynes.
This is, in many ways, a whole new Darwin. This Darwin isn't just a scientist who doggedly pursues a theory that changes the world. He is a husband and father who understands the ramifications of his ideas and isn't entirely sure he can live with them. Decades lapse between Darwin's formative excursion on the HMS Beagle and the publication of his masterwork in 1859, in part because Darwin (Paul Bettany, A Beautiful Mind) knows that his devout Christian wife, Emma (Jennifer Connelly, Blood Diamond) will be shattered if his ideas gain any traction. Furthermore, Darwin himself is devastated by the death of his eldest daughter, Annie, a kindred spirit and helpmate. His grief (and accompanying crisis of faith) weighs very heavily on him, and combines with worsening bouts of chronic illness to stall the completion of the book.
We already know how this story ends, which makes the emotional and spiritual intricacies of its beginning even more intriguing. Director Jon Amiel (Copycat) and writer John Collee (Master and Commander) guide us back and forth through time to understand Darwin's own evolution, and cinematographer Jess Hall (Hot Fuzz) shoots Darwin's England with an acute awareness of nature's role in the lives of the film's characters.
Creation screens Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Empire Theatres, Pen Centre. Visit brocku.ca/bufs for details.
-Amanda Bishop