This is a pretty movie. Darwin's six charming children are perfectly clean, starched and combed, who might have Mary Poppins or Maria von Trapp as nanny. His wife is a vision of loveliness in gigantic hoop skirts. There is no dust or anything broken in his house. His huge gardens are perfectly tended by invisible gardeners. His papers are perfectly arranged so that even something from a decade past is right on top. We never find out how this magnificent gleaming estate is financed.
I have problems with the movie because it so conflicts with everything I heard about Darwin. His wife was an ardent Christian, who strenuously opposed him publishing. Yet in the movie she is his champion and cheerleader urging him to publish.
Darwin was terrified of how Christians would react to his work. He made himself ill with fear. Yet in the movie, he is always in perfect health.
When his daughter died, that ended Darwin's belief in a benign god. This was a key event in his life. It was handled very indirectly in a single sentence in the movie. I felt the director was Christian and was dishonestly doing all he could to make Darwin look like a solid Christian. Darwin was well aware what he was doing would rock the church to its foundations. Darwin's father and grandfather were atheist, so his lack of faith should be expected.
The movie used a clumsy device. After years of marriage, Darwin finally decided to tell his wife what he had been doing in his lab all those years. Why the silence? Why the breaking of the silence? Not explained. This allowed the camera to do flashbacks. The exposition went on and on. Darwin used quite archaic, guarded language which was not very helpful to the modern viewer. I think some poetic licence could have done this exposition work with specific examples and visuals of animals and plants, rather than people walking about a garden talking in abstractions.
The movie ends with the publication of Origin Of Species. The truly interesting part comes later.
Unfortunately, you don't learn much about evolution. The main subject is who gets credit for ideas.
