A misfortune from start to finish - flat characterizations with revisionist mangling of historical figures held to improbable dramatic postures to support unlikely plot conclusions. The scenes are vapid. The dialog and language wholly uninspired, the players unconvinced. The idea, added to this script, that evolution is somehow responsible for the emergence of a new brand of human cruelty - is an irresponsible and strained plot device: apparently the only thing they could come up with for the "good vs evil" storyline unavailable to them from plausible historical fact. This film is no help to those for whom dramatic equivalent to Inherit the Wind was imagined. This might better be titled "Inherit the Gas"

The production is beautiful. So squeaky-clean. So much emphasis on a love story taking precedence over a moment of history. For all its anti-evolution talk, it never makes any valid points against it, but does bring up important issues such as eugenics. Perhaps the pseudo-Disney approach, lush music, soft-focus cameras, oh-so-traditionally old-fashioned production values are a disguise for religious propaganda. But the worst revisionism is not any attempt to derail the force of evolution and progress in education. The worst revisionism is the utterly false picture of an oh-so-happy South in which the races mixed easily and freely in social and work situations. The Black nurse shows no fear of the White clients or employers, and even speaks up to some. The female lead has mixed-race half-sister. No racial tension to speak of. That is a scurrilous portrait to paint of the oh-so-hate-filled South. If these undercurrents are associated with these very fine production values, that is the worst of all.