‘The Essex Serpent’ starring Tom Hiddleston: review
nypost.combestselling 2016 novel of the same name — the story is set in Victorian-era England and follows Cora Seaborne (Danes), a London widow who has a keen curiosity about science and the natural world (especially paleontology) and loves reading Darwin.
After her abusive husband dies, she’s free to pursue the life she wants. Intrigued by newspaper reports of a “sea dragon” sighted in Essex, she travels there to investigate, she’s convinced that the serpent could be a real creature that escaped evolution.
There, she stays with the local vicar, Will Ransome (Hiddleston) and his wife, Stella (Clemence Poesy, “Harry Potter”). She connects with Will, even though he disapproves of the mass belief in the serpent and is determined to convince everyone that it’s not real.
Although Cora and Will represent a typical “faith versus science” argument, they’re polite about their differences, and this plays out more like a dance between them than a true fierce clash.
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