Every year there is a biopic that comes along that seems to be put on this earth for the sole purpose of trying to win awards. Miss Potter, Copying Beethoven, Goodbye Bafana, etc., there's always some film or other which you can hear the pitch for with possible awards acclaim as the main probable reason for getting the film made rather than any specific greatness of story. Here we have husband and wife Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly teaming up on screen as Mr. and Mrs. Charles Darwin in a film which promised to be another in that long line of biopics that for all intents and purposes is begging for an oscar.
This is not the usual biopic though, it follows the final year of Darwin's writing of his seminal book, On the Origin of Species. What this does is take out any drama showing him conceiving his ideas or the 20 year struggle to put them down on paper, instead going for a dual narrative of him trying to finish the book whilst being haunted by the death of his daughter. As a study of grief it's average, it's a topic that's been done better many times before (for example through Charlotte Rampling's much vaunted turn in Under the Sand). On the other hand the battle between the Darwins (his wife being a devout Christian) is less successful, drawing her (and everyone else) in a very 2D manner which means when the big scenes come calling they lack the dramatic heft to underpin them.
Bettany gives one of those performances which is annoyingly competent. The wheels are turning in almost every scene and while doing the basics of what is required for a truly cinematic performance, the effort is very apparant. Connelly is utterly wasted and only really has one scene or two to get her teeth into, she's a fine actress but it's been a long time now (2003's House of Sand and Fog) since she's tackled a role remotely worthy of her talents. The support from the likes of Toby Jones and Jeremy Northam is fairly irrelevant, but Martha West as their stricken daughter Annie has a lovely presence and is probably the best performer on show despite Bettany's obvious efforts.
Occasionally the film tends to drag and does get rather turgid at times, the nature of all the strands of the story (his procrastination, the tension with his wife, the relationship with his daughter and the increasing illness he suffered) get rather repetetive and don't fuse together to create any real cohesion or dramatic arcs. There just isn't really enough of a story there and it feels padded out even at under two hours, therefore the overriding suspicion of the oscar being the primary motivation for this film rather than the desire to tell this specific story will always, sadly, abound.