THE NEW FILM ABOUT CHARLES DARWIN's struggle to write The Origin of Species is in part a standard British costume biopic. Creation conventionally dramatizes conflicts between Darwin (Paul Bettany) and his religiously devout wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly, Bettany's real-life spouse), and between Darwin and a Bible-literalist family friend, the Rev. Innes (Jeremy Northam). It also highlights the scientist's rapport with his short-lived daughter Annie (Martha West), who's shown as Darwin's true soulmate. The more interesting aspect of the film, which was directed by L.A.-based Briton Jon Amiel, is its treatment of the development of Darwin's thought. Amiel and scripter John Collee, who wrote the screen story together, deftly connect both ideas and species, depicting humanity as part of a continuum rather than something apart and above the rest of nature. This is mainstream scientific thought, but scandalous in some circles. So I began a short interview with Amiel, who met reporters last week at the National Academy of Sciences, by asking if some distributors had reckoned Creation too controversial for U.S. release.

Yes. But the issue really was the calculation by the people who buy and distribute independent movies that a movie like this wouldn't find an audience. They were worried about the controversial aspect of it, but they were also worried by the commercial aspect of it. Because the new wisdom in Hollywood is that people don't want to see dramas. "Drama" is the new dirty word.

The people of America need to know that there are going to be more and more truly fine films from around the world that they're not going to see.

Do you see the movie as primarily about characters or about ideas?

I think it's about both. If we've done our job right, the ideas and the characters are driving in the same direction. When Darwin and Innes disagree with each other, in one sense it's creationism meets evolution. On the other hand, it's two old friends coming up against something that's bigger than either of them can surmount. It's very much about friendship, loyalty, and the loss thereof.

You show an unruly universe, which is the opposite of what the Rev. Innes describes from the pulpit. You show a world in which the cute animals in the Darwins's garden eat each other.

However frankly absurd and science-denying the claims of so-called intelligent-design advocates, I don't think they're ever going to claim that the world of nature, red in tooth and claw, is orderly. So yes, we show a disordered universe. What we attempt to show in the film is the paradox of a disordered universe and a mind that ultimately succeeds in creating probably the most coherent and organized summary of the vast complexity of life that's ever been accomplished.

You explicitly liken Jenny the orangutan to Darwin's children, especially Annie.

I don't specifically liken her as much as Darwin specifically likened her. That was entirely based on Darwin's observations and connections that he made. We simply made them — remade them, as it were — in the film.

But when you're cutting between the two of them in great distress, it does make a strong case for continuity between species.

Absolutely. Darwin approached Jenny in the same way he approached his infant. We see him jangle the bell. He's comparing responses between an infant child and an infant orangutan. He made very profound behavioral connections between the two of them. So it seemed absolutely right to complete the arc of those connections. There's a wonderfully moving account of Jenny's death, from the period. We took many of Darwin's words from that account. This wasn't a parallel Darwin that drew, but John Collee and I were very struck, reading the accounts of Annie's death and Jenny's death, by the similarities between them.

You had Paul Bettany improvise his meeting with the orangutan.

We set up the trainer for four weeks to work with Jenny. To try to get her to do the various things that we'd scripted. But then I went to Thailand and met her, and ended up rolling in the grass with this little ape, blowing bubbles on her tummy, exactly the way I would with one of my kids, I realized that she was magical, incredibly responsive, and spontaneous. I also knew from having worked with Paul and the kids, that Paul was a wonderful improviser, and responded wonderfully to kids.

So I decided to ditch all the training we had done, ditch any attempt to push her to do any of her party tricks, and simply record the meeting. I set up a long piece of track so we could move the camera backwards and forwards. I had to bully, bludgeon, and cajole the assistant directors, because we kept running out of film. But I kept shooting, and the material we got was, I think, some of the most magical interaction between a human being and a non-human being I've ever witnessed.

My original cut of that scene was probably 20 minutes. There'll be a lot more on the DVD. Because I think it's utterly entrancing.

Was the sharing of the harmonica between Bettany and Jenny spontaneous?

Yes! We had no idea she'd do that. Or that she'd take the pencil out of his hand and start writing. Nor did I know that Paul was going to get up and mimic the funny little display dance that she kept doing for him. It was quite extraordinary to watch how she refused to come to him, studiously ignored him for awhile. Then, when he started to ignore her, that absolutely wonderful moment when she crosses the cage, peers over his shoulder at what's he writing. It was absolutely electric.

How do think Darwin was affected by the failed attempt to "civilize" three Indian children the British took from Terra del Fuego?

We show that British Navy Capt. Fitzroy is enraged by the Fuegan children's secession back to savagehood. You see Fitzroy enraged, and Darwin's laughing heartily. We tried to suggest, just in that one beat, that he thought the whole enterprise was a preposterous piece of cultural imperialism. And I think that is what he thought.

That would put him at odds with everyone else in Europe at that point.

Not everyone. But one of the things we know about Darwin is that he had a hyper-sensitive response to cruelty. He could not abide cruelty toward animals. When he saw a farmer flogging his horse, things like that absolutely incensed him. Also, the cruelty of slavery incensed him. I think he perceived Fitzroy's great experiment as essentially cruel to these children. I think that was his guiding response.

The film has Annie say, "It's only a theory." Was that a joke on creationists?

Yes. I kind of wanted to put that line on the poster. "What are you so afraid of? It's only a theory." It did seem to be a wonderful red flag to wave at our creationist friends.

There's also the scene in church where the family joins in singing, "All Things Bright and Beautiful." It's a reminder of the Victorian worldview.

The hymn is just perfect, because it's one all of us grew up singing. Which none of us really questioned. "All things bright and beautiful/All creatures great and small/All things wise and wonderful/The lord God made them all." We contrast the sweet innocence of Annie's singing that hymn, and indeed the whole congregation's, with Darwin's reaction to it.

I think that's one of the most effective things about the film. You take things that are commonplace in Anglo-American culture, and put them in a context where you have to really consider what they mean.

We're encouraging the audience to step into Darwin's mindset, and Darwin's perception of the world. Because he did have this astonishing ability to look fresh at ordinary things. People remember Darwin most for the Beagle and the Galapagos. But actually I think the work he did in his little country pad in Kent, five acres or so, was far more important to him than all that more showy stuff. He was able to look at bees and worms and ants and small animals, and observe them in ways that one would never think of observing them. He made connections between their behaviors that opened up entirely new perspectives on them.

If, in any small measure, we do that in the film, we're also letting the audience into that special, perceptive knack he had.

Randal Keynes, Darwin biographer's and his great, great-grandson, was a consultant to the film. What did he provide?

Authenticity. Randal's an expert on Darwin. He's written a definitive book about him. He's also, by implication and fact, the guardian of Darwin's legacy. It was tremendously important to us that Randal gave his benediction to what we were doing. We would go for him sometimes for facts: Did Darwin ever write a letter to such and such? Can you give us more details about the skeletonizing?

But also, we made a few imaginative leaps. One of the things I'm enormously grateful to Randal for is that — unlike a lot of academics, who might have said, "No no no! It's not on the page!" — Randal said, "Yes. Please go to that place, because I can't. As a biographer and a historian, I can't go there, but as a filmmaker you can." He enfranchised us to let our imaginations work. At those points where the diarist had closed the book, and the journal entry ended. Where a person walks into the bedroom and closes the door — that the place where the historian has to stop. But the dramatist can begin. And that we did, very cautiously, but very much with Randal's approbation.

CREATION — 2009, 108 min; at Landmark E Street.