An average movie

When I heard about this flick, I thought it had some great potential so I was quite eager to check it out. Indeed, Charles Darwin must have been one of the most brilliant human-beings that ever lived and to make a movie about this man and his revolutionary theory sounded like a great challenge. Unfortunately, they decided to rather focus on how the man became physically and mentally ill after the death of his oldest daughter. So, instead of having a deep reflection about his amazing theory of evolution, we got instead a well made but still terribly pedestrian domestic drama. I mean, it was not completely worthless, Paul Bettany gave a really solid performance, he did what he could with the material and there were some interesting bits about his struggle between what he believes his true and the common beliefs had the time and also between his love for his wife and the fact she deeply believed in God while his theory pretty much shattered most of the Dogmas she believed in. To make things worse, towards the end, all these dilemmas seemed to be pretty much easily solved after a heartfelt and emotional discussion between the two of them which seemed a rather abrupt short-cut. To conclude, the whole thing felt like a missed opportunity but, somehow, it remains watchable and I think it is still worth a look.

6/10