Reviews

For those of you reporting that you nearly fell asleep, I have to tell you that I did fall asleep. And I wasn't trying.

This movie uses the same trick that The Passion used. Take the last few days (in this case) and the Last Day (in the case of The Passion) and focus on that. Never mind that the Gospels have survived for 2000 years. Never mind that Paul's letters and his journeys form an important cornerstone of Christianity. All of that is unimportant. Focus on the Unjust Death of the central character. Focus on the end, not on the beginning, not on the journey, not on why Millions of people for the past 2000 years have treasured the Bible and worshiped God with much intensity because of Jesus and Paul.

Ignore all that. We have to have violence. We need death. We need to take note only of the fact that there was an end to their lives. Never mind anything else.

If you sense anger coming from my review, you would be right. I am angry. We are not children to be manipulated. Believe or don't believe, Jesus and Paul contributed greatly to the thought of Western Civilization. If you cannot convey any part of that, don't make the movie.

A film like this one and the Passion does absolutely nothing to enhance our development. If all there was to Jesus was the Crucifixion, he would have wound up as a small footnote in human history. If all there was to Paul was his death, then he wouldn't have even made footnote status.

Want to play a game? Can you name one other person in history besides Spartacus that was crucified? Try. Try harder. I would be willing to bet you cannot name more than five. I can't either.

Perhaps I should wait for this to come as DVD and give it another chance. I don't think I'll change my mind, but who knows? I gave it a 4 but don't question that 4 too deeply. I can't give you many reasons, and if you see this, unless you are willfully blind, you won't be able to do much better than a 4.

I had trouble with this movie. Someone should remind produces that movies are about 2 hours long. They can't include everything. The Chinese really serve no useful purpose here, as they debate whether to help or not using subtitles.

There was an awful lot of talk. By and large, Matt Damon delivered it well: if he had not, the film would have been a total bomb. He is engaging, charming, witty, observant, intelligent and courageous. He does convey (lightly) the problems he has and so by the end, we believe him when he says

At some point, everything's gonna go south on you and you're going to say, this is it. This is how I end. Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work. That's all it is. You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem and you solve the next one, and then the next. And If you solve enough problems, you get to come home.

But the dialogue can become tiresome, especially when nothing is really going on. Many people I've talked to found the syllogism on becoming a space pirate very engaging. I did not. At best it was sophistry and at worst garble that took up valuable time. I defer, however, to those that liked it.

It is long.

It does not have well developed minor characters.

It has scenes and speeches that are inappropriate or at best underdeveloped It had Picardian science (Jon Luc Picard -- Star Trek -- The Next Generation) who is wont to say "Make it so." Well just because he commands it to be so, does not make it so -- like explaining the sling shot effect to the director of NASA. The Director of NASA would understand what it was.

If you want to see how this movie should be done, rent Apollo 13 and save yourself 25 dollars doing it. See how Ed Harris plays Jeff Daniel's part and how Tom Hanks does the Martian.

That is not actually the fault of either Daniels or Damon. It is the fault of the writer and the director.

Still I gave it a six. That's because Damon doesn't fail -- ever.

20 dollars to watch the special effects of a level below that of a video game. At least with a video game a player has the ability to interact. Not so with this movie.

I would have given this a zero, but it is impossible.

This had no plot that could be followed. It had no characters that would interest anyone with an IQ over 45. It had no theme that I was aware of. It had no suspense because this is a prequel, so we know all the good guys will be around for yet another disaster movie, and so will the one good actor -- the bad guy Khan. It had music that was overpowering as though it should add to all the cacophony of what passed for dialogue. It had no wit and no charm and no depth.

In short it had nothing at all and if that's all Star Trek can do, it's time for another series. Let this one rest. It has been an honourable series up to this point.

Leave it be.

I'm going to start with what I didn't like. This film could have done with a scissors taken after it. There was too much music, too much on the young girl's life, and too much that didn't need to be there.

But if one was attentive, one didn't mind. Every film has some flaws in it, but good ones have enough in them that the flaws can be overlooked.

So let's consider the good parts.

This was not a typical Christian film. It had R rated language, it had sexuality that was plain and honest. It had an honest discussion of faith and an intelligent representation of doubt. It had Christians who lived their problems and it had small bits of drama that made us aware of the main Character's observations.

What's not to like? The R rated language is sometimes an adjunct that is necessary especially when anger is our most dominant emotional response. Those 4 and 5 letter words are all that will work. We might just as well say what we think.

When one sees the world through poetic eyes one begins to interpret rather than think literally. When we interpret, perhaps we lose sight of God, but we begin a journey that could perhaps take the rest of our lives to come to the end. Corine (the main character) went on such a journey. She began to realize that she wasn't living the same life as those around her. She wanted to, but it just wasn't in her.

Slowly, ever so slowly, discontent set it. She could not live what she perceived as the rigid life of those around her. Finally after a violent eruption of honesty coupled with her near choking murder by a nearly out of control angry husband she agrees to go to a marriage councillor. What a mistake.

He judges her even before she gets there. I think the film missed a chance to really get some of her anger plainly stated. The councillor is actually correct in what he says. He has a poor vocabulary to talk to her, but he is not wrong. She could confront him by saying that he is right, but he is still not her teacher. She knows that basic discontent has set in. What I liked about the film is that it admits that basic discontent cannot be cured. She must leave her husband. She must leave the church and she must leave her old life behind so that she can go on the journey she so desperately needs to take. He is an arrogant man, full of self righteous hatred of anyone who does not think and believe as he does, and he needs to be told that, if not for his development, then for hers.

It missed a chance, but it was not wrong. She was not developed enough to stand her ground and teach men. Not yet.

That would come later, almost at the end. Then she was able to say (finally) that she did belong in Church. She was able to say that she admired those who have faith, but she did not. And she joined the dogs outside. She did it willingly and honestly.

Bravo, for her.

In the meantime the church did the only thing it could. It continued on with its service. Christians will see this as a slap in the face. I don't really. They have their standards. She has hers. They each have to live within their structure and the film presents us with that. That's where most of my nine out of ten came from.

What's not to like when you are given so much opportunity to think and observe.

9/10

This review definitely contains spoilers.

I am one of those people whose response to the world is thought. I am often taken to task for that response, and I know it is a terrible weakness much of the time. This film cannot be responded to by thought alone. It would be a travesty. It is a huge temptation on my part to go on about the 14 Stations of the Cross and the 15th one lost on the road (which is sometimes thought of as the Resurrection of Christ). Nothing could be more unimportant. Of all the many films I have seen, this one more than most others, demands that we feel before we think.

Forbidden Games was made shortly after the Second World War. It was fresh in the minds of those who lived through it. The inhumanity of war was never very far from the director's mind (Rene Clement, who was also given credit for participating in the writing). France was a major victim, and Clement makes war's horror his 3rd most important character. For those that notice such things, music is the 4th character. It counterbalances the ugliness that is always in the background.

The film centres around the response of two children (one in particular -- the young girl -- Paulette -- who was perhaps 5 or 6 at the time) to death. After the shockingly pointless murder of her parents by a plane strafing a column of refugees -- who were doing nothing but evacuating Paris and represented no danger to the incoming conquering Nazis -- Paulette encounters Michel (who is perhaps 9) as he is trying to round up cattle.

Paulette is adopted by the Dollé family: Michel is their youngest son. Michel takes on the responsibility of helping her adjust to the almost normal life he lives, but he soon becomes caught up in the horrors that she has experienced, and being the kind soul he is, he wants to help her.

They develop a plan to steal crosses to mark the graves of the dead creatures they have found around the farm -- the most important of which was her dog who was hit during the strafing. Stealing crosses is no easy matter. Michel gets himself into all sorts of hot water trying to find enough crosses to mark the graves of 14 creatures buried in the nearby abandoned mill. That provides some of the screenplay's humour, which I did not find amusing, but I saw how others could.

Sometimes Michel acted as a 9 year old. He was tempted to kill a cricket to add it to their graveyard. Paulette screamed at him not to. Of the two, she is the one who understands the true nature of death, and she does not want to cause it needlessly, but she is not without flaws. She wants him to steal the priest's cross from the alter which he attempts to do. She is not satisfied with just any cross: she wants the best there is probably for her dog.

European films are noted for their characterization and comments on humanity rather than plot the way North Americans understand plot. Plot has come to mean special effects and or action. Forbidden Games does not need artificial action. It needs only the two children whom we care about deeply and the background of war. Plenty is done with just following the children around from their meeting, their developing love for one another, their need to shut out the inhumanity around them, their helplessness in the betrayal of the adults who did not seem to care that she was going to be separated again from a family that cared about her, to the ending. We see Paulette leaving a family that loved her and going to a situation more typical of war -- an overcrowded orphanage for children manned by kind but beyond overworked nuns. Her painful cry for her friend and his angry rejection of traditional symbolic Christianity is what we are left with. What more do we need?

This is a rare movie.

There's no plot really. There are no explosions. No chases, that would make Dirty Harry's day. No death's that involved gore. No sex even mentioned, let alone witnessed. There's not even so much as a chaste kiss between the two main characters. Would you believe that two of the highlights was nothing more dramatic than poetry read by people who knew how to read it? Would you also believe that the plot revolved around the delight of a reader of English Literature, and the slow mutual regard that developed between reader and bookseller? Would you be as entranced as most of us who wrote reviews were as we listened to these two exchange the simple pleasure both enjoyed in the other? And yet it's a remarkable movie that many people rated as a ten, including me.

I thought it was a ten because everyone spoke like people.

The movie was not only about books, and literature and poetry. It was about how people helped each other through difficult times with little acts of kindness before the term was even thought of.

While the main point of the correspondence between these two concerned books, the humanity of one American (the character played by Anne Bancroft), and the proud dignity of one Englishman (Anthony Hopkins) was really a celebration of what is best in all of us. That is what made the movie so touching.

It is also what made it worth its ten.

This film is unlike any that Scorsese has ever made, or at least those of his that I've seen. It is a complex mixture of mechanics, imagination, familiar images, people's psychology and most of all dreaming the way children dream. It is both a tribute and a biography although to call it either would diminish what it really is – a masterpiece of a master storyteller.

It is the story of one child prodigy (Hugo – acted by Asa Butterfield) who fixes things and who inherits from his father, an automaton that is broken.

It is massively complex, but the boy is able to fix it. He cannot make it run however because he lacks one essential element and doesn't know where to find it. He meets a young girl his own age, 12 (Isabella – charmingly recreated by Chloe Grace Maretz that the Romance Novels would describe as "having pluck." She has around her neck, the piece of the machine that finally makes it work: It is a heart shaped key. By this time, we are so engrossed in the plot that the symbolism passes right by us. It does not pass by Scorsese though. He reminds us that without heart, nothing works. The heart is the key to turning us from machines into well functioning humans.

Everyone of major importance seems to learn something, and as a consequence, so do we.

Georges Mêlées (played by the master of understatement Ben Kingsley) learns that perhaps he should not look at the past as failings and filled with unimaginable horror. He should perhaps see the world as he and his wife created it for themselves. The world for them was for fun and dreams and wizards and mermaids and images that could come from no one but someone with a very fertile imagination who essentially loved. Mama Jeanne (his wife – Helen McCrory) is a startling woman who at just the right moment learns that she can make her husband see the world he left behind through her eyes. She learns that her feminine view has its place as well.

Isabella has her first adventure and she laps it up the way a kitten laps a bowl of milk.

Finally Hugo finds a family who understands him, and he learns that he can grow and develop.

It's a fine film well worth an evening.

I seldom review films I detest.

This one is below detest. Six million people were ruthlessly hunted down and murdered during the Second World War. In all, 22 million people lost their lives.

Those statistics are not to be treated with anything but horror. Nazi Germany was a mad house. It was ruled by sociopaths and psychopaths. It was a carefully planed mass murder.

To be treated as this movie has is a travesty and degradation to those innocents who lost their lives.

I cannot give a reason that satisfies me of why the film was made. I don't have any idea what it hopes to accomplish. Further, I have nothing to say about the nature of the acting styles, the plot holes, the absolute impossibility of it happening. I do not see any irony. I don't see any social comment.

And though in general, the acting was good and the technicals good, that only means that the hollow nature of the plot betrays whatever technical values there are.

I promised I would use spoilers. The whole movie was a spoiler. Any reference to the plot would be a spoiler. My opinion of it is a warning: don't see this film. There is nothing in it that redeems it. It was a complete waste of talent, time and money. I suppose the 1 out of 10 is for the cast and editing but the sum total of the parts is really zero.

You have to have lived through the 50's to understand why this film is a reflection of that decade.

Not everyone agrees, but the 50's is so well represented by the Man in the Grey Flannel Suit. The Steel Trap begins the same grey way. A man -- a J. Alfred Prufrock kind of a man -- gets up in the morning, eats, gets into his car, drives to the train station, dodges traffic, opens the bank outside door where he works, puts in his time, goes home and repeats the same thing the next day.

It's Groundhog Day without any chance of reprieve, any chance of self improvement, and certainly no Andie McDowell to win over. With that as background, is there any doubt about why he contemplates, plans and actually does rob the bank he works for?

Teresa Wright plays a woman that reminds everyone of the young married mother. Her biggest problem seems to be one domestic crisis after another, one that could spell disaster for Joseph Cotton if she delays too long. There is one piece of cinematography that is astonishing. While waiting for the tellers to balance their books, the camera focuses on a closeup of Cotton. His normally bland good looks are transformed into something very reptilian and cold blooded just before he takes the cash. What a remarkable transformation that disappears as he goes into action and he becomes -- Joseph Cotton, the man we all remember from the Third Man.

So the plot goes. Scene after scene, each as problematic for Cotton as the one preceding it, is met with the same almost military precision, not a surprising event in 1950, just 5 years after the American involvement in the Second World War. People were ready for any movie the highlighted American ingenuity and quick thinking. Also. suspense didn't hurt.

I didn't get an exact count, but I think there were 15 scenes between the beginning and when Wright leaves to come back home. All were filled with complication and suspense.

The climax comes when she decides to leave him. Her reasons for going home are very indicative of the times: she loves her child, her home, her country and her standard American life.

The suspense continues, because now the cat is out of the bag: others now know what has happened. So what will Cotton do? Will he go back to his wife and child, or will he go on to Brazil and enjoy the money he has stolen? Is he a man of the 50's or is this a film much ahead of its time? Even with a spoiler, I cannot say much more. Watch it and sit on your hands because if you don't, you'll bite your nails off.

Crazy, Stupid, Love is a movie about 3 couples and 2 educations. It is not an ordinary comedy because people are allowed to say and do things which reflects our times and our society more than it does the wishes and dreams of a segment of our society.

Couple Number One ================= Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) and Emily Weaver (Juliette Moore) are out celebrating when he asks her what she would like (thinking the answer might be something like pumpkin pie) when she announces she wants a divorce.

That's quite an opening line for a "comedy."

Because he loves her, he immediately though very reluctantly agrees. He's read all the modern truisms about separation "If you love someone let them go." So he lets her go. All very cold and civilized. But he doesn't respond that way; he's not civilized at all.

Reliable straight arrow Cal has a response that his 13 year old son Robbie (Jonah Bobo) would understand perfectly. He goes to a bar, drinks too much, and announces to the people in the bar just how sad, hurt, unaccepting he really is. He lives the 21st century but he feels the 1950's.

The Educations ============= The education is in two parts. There is Cal's education and then there is Jacob's (delightfully filled out by Ryan Gosling – a terrific actor who can do just about anything). The first one is easy. It is all fantasy. Jacob convinces Cal that there is a method to dealing with women: Right clothes, right lines, right attitude and right tone of voice; that's all it takes. Jacob is shallow, and who knows but his shallow methods might work on a certain type of woman. Cal sees it works like Alternate Medicine. People around you say one thing and Dr. Jacob another. Who's to say Jacob isn't right?

So Cal is a good student. He goes from an uncertain bubbling incompetent to a clone almost as good as Jacob himself. In one of the minor sub plots, he seduces Marisa Tomei who plays her absolute best over the top recovering alcoholic who has bought into our view that sex is therapy. That is the height of Cal's career as 21st century lounge lizard. It also is a wake up call for him. He knows how shallow all of this is.

The second education is that of Jacob, who discovers that for all her brilliance, Hannah, (Cal's oldest daughter played by Emma Stone) is grounded in something far better than meaningless sex. She believes in love and though she is distracted by her reaction to the cold stupidity of a coworker, she is not so blinded that she can't see where Jacob will lead her even though she thinks that's what she wants. Hannah demands underneath that frustration, that Jacob do more than get her fixed. Perhaps because some of Cal's virtue rubs off on him, Jacob realizes he must comply with her values.

The Second Couple ================= This is really intended as either comedy relief or a spoof on the "Nerd" movies.

It is the puppy love of a thirteen year old (Jonah Bobo who plays Robbie Weaver) and his baby sitter (Jessica startlingly well done by Analeigh Tipton). It is a real over the top presentation, but its not unrealistic. It is the way a young teen would act, if not over someone then something. There is commitment, there is enthusiasm, there is desire, there is single mindedness, there is the willingness to do anything it takes to succeed. And there is wisdom. He is smart enough and practical enough that Cal (who both loves and admires Robbie – a rare combination) admits out loud that sometimes Robbie scares him.

In the meantime Jessica is in love with Cal. She's older but really just as inexperienced as Robbie. In our century sex knows no real boundaries (it's love that's the problem), and she's willing to take the advice of a much more knowledgeable "older" woman – a classmate that knows how to deal with "older men." Jessica accepts the advice and does what she is told. The trouble is that she cannot get up the nerve to give what she does to Cal and her parents discover it. That's when parental love comes in contract with sexual ease. Hell hath no fury like an inflamed parent.

Robbie, faithful and very truthful observer that he is, gives up on her. How can he compete when a woman does not recognize him to be on the same playing field? We have just killed the 1930's and 40's notion of one girl many beaus.

The Least Convincing Couple =========================== I was least convinced by Emily and Kevin Bacon. Of all the people in this movie, she learned the least. Once she was convinced how much Cal had learned, how he could cope and how much he was dedicated to the idea of her, she wanted him back. She's Harlequin at its best.

What this movie did =================== The director and actors rejected any notion of anything less than a good strong marriage. With all its troubles and disadvantages it is still our best option. This movie makes any of us who are in committed marriages very uncomfortable because it is bleak and at the same time rich, powerful and yet people get to snivel, it knows its society, yet it dares to choose a value as old as the beginning chapters of Genesis. It shows our vulgarity, but chooses modesty.

Like it or hate it, Crazy, Stupid Love at least has the courage to stand for something that is critical of our revolving divorce door and shallow discontent.

I would have thought that one had to be over (say) 50 to understand this movie. What I've found is that it is unpredictable. There is no pattern: some people like it; some don't. I don't think anyone is indifferent, but I could be wrong.

I read two "Hereafter" reviews. One (Roger Ebert) gave it 4 out of 4. Another hated it and I doubt he would have given it 1 out of 4. Both, I think, saw different movies.

My wife was disappointed as well, whereas I cannot say how much I liked it.

If you expected a commentary on the hereafter, or enlightenment, or views about it, don't go. That's not what it was about. It is not a documentary.

This is not a typical Clint Eastwood movie either. It is not plot driven. It is not exactly character or theme driven either. That does not mean it isn't "true." It just means you have to watch carefully.

I cannot think of another Eastwood movie like it. Parts maybe. Some characters we've seen before. Bryce Dallas Howard has a remarkable cameo (as Melanie -- the girl in the cooking class) that has to remind us of an early Eastwood, "Breezy." Eastwood has a gift for creating women that are attractive, likable and deep even though they appear to be ditzy.

Because I've said that the plot is not consequential in this, a quick summary can't hurt. The movie centers around four people (most people say three) who have something to say about the hereafter. One is a French broadcaster who tries to recapture her life after experiencing a near death experience. She finds it futile, and begins to explore what is now important to her.

One is a psychic who looks upon his "gift" as a curse. He tries to take simple pleasures in life, but ultimately he is driven to use his gift "for the benefit of people." who desperately "need to know." The third is a pre-teen who would give anything to make contact with his twin brother. He is driven by nothing else. He is so silent so determined and so discerning in his search. Ultimately he has more wisdom than the adults around him.

The fourth is Melanie, who can't stand the truth. She is even more troubled by it than George is, if that's possible. Her gaiety fades when she discovers that George really can see what has happened to her: she is never able to face him again and another much needed relationship that he desperately wants self-destructs.

There is one thing that could be considered a spoiler and that is the ending. It seems that love, in Eastwood's estimation, overcomes difficulties and we are left with the impression that George can touch without having a person's entire life disclosed to him. Personally, I believe it, but by then I'm willing to concede anything.

I have to begin by saying that I liked this film. I'd gladly have any of the characters as my next door neighbours. It seemed to me as I watched that I was looking at something very personal and very compelling, but I wasn't really a Peeping Tom. The characters were more or less inviting me into their lives. They seemed to want me to say just what I've said. "You're all complex interesting people." Adam was not the only one with limitations.

Beth is probably the subtlest of all the characters, so start with her. If one is not careful, one could come to a very unsympathetic conclusion. She states her reasons pretty clearly.

"We would never be able to look in each others eyes and know what the other was feeling," Beth says to her mother.

That sounds like it's a cruel summary of Asperger's Syndrome, but it's really not. Beth is a writer. She makes her living by appealing to our feelings. She does not understand the problem of not being able to communicate without emotion. In a way she too is severely handicapped, so much so that her mother has to explain the difference between feeling loved and loving.

She asks Adam what he means by love. He starts off really well by stumbling through a confession of his conclusion that she was part of him. Then he makes a mistake (in her eyes) and says he needs her to help him through all the things he can't do. She can't bridge the two things; and she should have been able to.

Adam is the central character of this movie. Everything revolves around his growth. By the end, he knows how to help people, he knows how to get from home to work and back again. Instead of having to ask what people were feeling, he has clues. We hope that Beth will grow up as much as he has. It would seem I have this backwards, because it is he who cannot feel. If he cannot feel the way we think of it, at least he can navigate through it awkwardly, but he can navigate. I doubt he would blow up at Beth's small manipulation with the same energy that he damned her father for his dishonest handling of one of his client's books with which she later concurred (Beth's father is an accountant).

It sounds like I've sided with him rather than her. Not true. To her, he looks like one more relationship that failed. She does not know or she does not seem to know, how much she means to him. He is willing to go off and face his demons for her.

He knows by the end that he is ready. We hope she will hear his closing line after giving a typical Adam answer to telescopes he has learned to charm his audience. He says, "Maybe it's better to just look up in the sky."

Maybe if she remembers what she says about herself at the beginning she will be ready.

"When I was young, my father told me about the little prince. He said I was the little prince because the little prince taught the pilot to love. After I met Adam, I found out I was the pilot."

Shadowheart begins with a reference to Matthew 6:14 – 15. These two verses command people to forgive those who trespass against them as God forgives us for ours. We expect the film to connect somehow to this theme.

It never does.

In fact, there are so many murders (I lost track after eight), only a war movie could produce more. Yet of all the pointless mayhem, only one was justified or meaningful. If we were paying attention to the Bible verse at the beginning, no one was forgiven and therefore God should not forgive us.

Big Spoiler

Yet the very last scene shows the dead wife of James Conners, the main character, leading him through the white light to what lies beyond – presumably heaven. We expect to see something about forgiveness and we get pointless retribution.

I did not like this film not because of the violence. I think the Godfather Saga is a timeless masterpiece. I did not like this because it had Christian overtones. I think Fireproof is a good film that addresses the difficulties of modern marriage. Fireproof has many weaknesses, which a viewer has to overlook including what I think is an impossible problem to overcome. Still it's an interesting film. I disliked this film because it was disjointed. I disliked this film because it did not seem to know what it was trying to do nor where it was going.

I would like to say that there was some sort of redeeming feature, but I don't think there was.

I gave it a four because I kept hoping something coherent would happen. There was enough writing to create hope, alas never fulfilled.

Don't plan on watching Creation as a light comedy suitable for a Saturday night date movie.

Creation must be watched with full attention and an open mind. It has little to do with the debate that fundamentalists have made it.

It is a movie of two loving parents, four children (one of whom became mortally ill) and the struggle to create a book from a mind, according to the movie, that is tortured and delusional. It is the story of a child whose curiosity parallelled rather tragically an act of an orangutan that brought about her death.

The movie depicts Emma Darwin (Jennifer Connolly) as a strong willed Christian (which Emma was). If you are expecting Ms. Connolly to be as stunning and lively as she was in a Beautiful Mind, you will be disappointed. Here she dares act with little if any makeup, her hair drawn straight back to a bun and parted in the middle. She is more than adequate as a study of a plain strong woman who can stand up to her husband to the point where he is driven almost mad by her unbending religious will. Yet she is not a fanatic. Others may think so, but she really is not. If a viewer is not convinced, consider how she handles reading his manuscript. The movie shows it just the way it happened. It took a marvellous woman to retain her religious beliefs and encourage Darwin to publish.

Darwin himself (wonderfully played by Paul Bettany) is shown as almost mentally ill by what he observes. He has two driving motives: to love his family (especially his oldest daughter Annie) and to find a way of writing the Origin of the Species knowing that it will offend all traditional religious thought on the subject of creation. Particularly odious to him is the fact that his wife believes that he will be permanently separated from God (and from her) should he persist in publishing his book. He half believes that she may be right. A fact that the movie left unstated is that Darwin was trained to be a minister – I think a huge omission. It would have made the complexity of his problem that much deeper.

Though we do not see much of the children (except Annie), what we do get is really well handled. We will hope there is more of Freya Parks to come. She was a very sensitive Etty Darwin with naturalness much beyond her years. She is especially touching as she watches a fox kill a rabbit. Though Annie understands, Etty is more childlike in her response of repulsion, sadness and horror. She is even better displaying affection, if that is possible, when she asks her father to tell the children a story they have not heard.

Annie Darwin (Martha West) caries most of the load for the part the children must play and she is delightful, serious, charming, witty, understanding and above all a lovable girl of about 10 going on 30. Her scene with the photographer and her father cannot be missed. This girl too will make many more movies one hopes.

The great critic Roger Ebert said that Hollywood (he was referring to Creation) believes that all problems can be solved in the bedroom. Maybe that does reflect 2010 more than 1851, but if it is a flaw, it is a minor one.

Creation should be seen not for enlightenment about Darwin or the Origin of Species, or a resoltion to the Fundamentalist debate about religion vs. science, but because it is a good film that has good family values. We see parents who are parents as well as being adults, and children who are children. We need more films like Creation.