The first scene of Laurence Dunmore's "The Libertine" opens to a dark room, where a flickering light sporadically illuminates the face of the Earl of Rochester (Johnny Depp). He urges the ladies and the gentleman to stay away from him, for coming too close will cost them dearly. He warns the audience that they will not like him. And he promises that he will remain unforgiving for everything that happens over the course of the story of his life.
Unforgiving is the best way to describe the film, which focuses on the Earl of Rochester, the 17th century poet and the son of King Charles II (John Malkovich). The prologue explains that with the accession of King Charles II after James I, England was reeling having been so subdued from a previously puritanical rule. Thus they suffered an explosion of dissolution with their poster boy being Rochester. At one point Charles asks Rochester to pen a play that would be a glorious tribute to his rule as part of a celebration for the arrival of the King of France (and from whom, coincidentally, they needed military assistance). He said, "Elizabeth had her Shakespeare. You could be mine." What he produced was a hyper-phallic farce, which was Rochester's tribute to the throne. But Rochester had one too many affairs and contracted syphilis and lost that which made him tick.
It would have been hard to do a play such as this and not mention Shakespeare's name. But there is a serious investment in being the anti-Shakespeare. Depp is not a 17th century heartthrob, and he's worse than a cad. The film reminds us that we are terribly stuffy because we are continuously shocked at descriptions of organs and coitus.
But unfortunately the film takes for granted that the audience will trust that he is worth such headache and heartache because of his work, none of which is relayed in the course of the film. Thus by the end of the film we are not as invested in his life as we could have been. We mourn because his wife mourns and because the camera has followed him through every twisted, muddy alleyway and through countless beds of prostitutes.
One of the achievements of this film is that it usurps all of the viewer's senses by way of its immense investment in setting and perspective. Dunmore has created a gritty and licentious London, filming scenes in some of its darkest crevices using a shaky camera and candlelight. The Earl of Rochester is most certainly a product of his environment, finding inspiration in the debauchery around him. There is a chemistry between Rochester and Charles II (Malkovich), one in which the unspoken words fill volumes. That relationship becomes more interesting than the one between Rochester and the aspiring actress Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton). But as the disease chips away at Rochester, the film seems to flake apart as well. Rochester's death is agonizingly slow, both for the man and for the audience covering their eyes.
This movie is an amazingly good effort because it is able to ease our initial doubts given the graphic nature of the subject, but perhaps when that is done away with, so is our interest in the movie. The end the film feels fatalistic, even if it probably is not supposed to. The acting is superb and unflinching, but for all of that it ends with a hazy emptiness.
