Generally I'm not in favor of people deliberately changing their eye color with contact lenses. It's because I don't like the fake aesthetics behind it.
However, in Camilla Belle's case, once I saw her with blue eyes instead of her normal dark brown eyes, I had to agree, she did look much more attractive and alluring. I was more inclined to look at her face with blue eyes than I did when she goes about with her normal dark eyes. I guess it's true, the eyes have it.
The really funny thing though is that the mutation for blue eyes had not actually occurred yet so there is no way her character could have had blue eyes.
True, true, the movie is full of DELIBERATE atavistic errors, that is, things out of time. I accept that the movie was a fantasy movie. You even saw the giant carnivorous birds, 'Gastornis', also known as, 'Diatryma', which existed during the Eocene Epoch, some 45 million years ago.
Anthropologists think that BLUE EYES appeared in the human genome somewhere around the Black Sea region perhaps 8,000 years ago. It was a defective mutation that proved harmless, low pigmentation in the eyes' irises. But you remember my positive reaction to Camilla Belle's temporary blue eyes and how much prettier she looked. That's probably the same reaction 8,000 years ago. The baby girl or baby boy was considered highly attractive by members of his/her clan. The child grew up, was married off to an eager partner and went on to produce many babies. The blue eye mutation spread like wildfire among the following human generations.
No, blue eyes spread like wildfire in Europe because they were more adapted for the cold weather in that region - along with other European features, like light colored hair, high-bridged/pointed noses. I don't think eye color is something most people even really notice unless it is specifically pointed out to them (as were Belle's eyes in this film). Most western sex symbols have brown eyes. Even in the OP, you mistook Camilla Belle's light green eyes for dark brown - and there is a huge difference in color between green and dark brown.
It was implied Camille Bell (Evolet) was the first person to have blue eyes. The mutation for light colored eyes and hair was very recent (during the last Ice Age). At the end of the film, her tribe gives up mammoth hunting for agriculture. As the glaciers continue to recede her people would have spread across Europe.
Her progeny were the first blue-eyed Northern Europeans.
I just about stopped watching this movie when they brought out a little girl with obvious blue contacts. At this point I've only gotten into the film about 9 minutes, and when Camille Belle appeared with the same ridiculous contacts, I had to seen if anyone had commented on them.
Why. Just why. Aren't there any brunette, olive complected actors with blue eyes? Did casting somehow believe they'd sacrifice the quality of acting by choosing another actor with the appropriate physical characteristics? Or was it because they simply had to cast Camille Belle? Then why the kid in contacts? She looked worse than Camille.
I may or may not finish the film, but the casting was without thought and the contact lens thing is ridiculous.