The Libertine film review

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THE LIBERTINE

That The Libertine has only just now been released in 2006 after first being screened at the Toronto Film Festival back in 2004 suggests that all was not well. It's hard to imagine what shape it was in back then given that all the subsequent reworking has barely made this rendition palatable. Even the presence of Johnny Depp is unable to salvage things.

That the engaging Depp for once comes across as less than endearing is due more to the self-professed unappealing nature of his character than a reflection on the actor. Depp plays the Earl Of Rochester whose opening words, spoken directly to the camera in a confessional manner, are "You will not like me. I do not want you to like me." Nearly two hours later, you know what he means. In the intervening period, the Earl, a real life figure whose name was John Wilmot, enjoys a ruinous lifestyle of drink and debauched degradation before succumbing to a disfiguring demise as a result of syphilis at the age of 33.

Stephen Jeffreys has adapted his stage play, which originally featured John Malkovich in the title role. Malkovich, who doubles as producer, now plays the earl's benefactor King Charles II. Under the direction of Laurence Dunmore, The Libertine is a dark morality tale about the consequences of indulgence and excess set in 17th century England.

The once banished earl is invited by the king to return to London and write a suitably fitting work to glorify the king's achievements in reviving the country's artistic liberalism. "You're my literary giant," the king explains. "Elizabeth had her Shakespeare, you can be mine." But instead, with the king's £500 payment to subsidise his whims, the earl teams up with old drinking friends, playwright Sir George Etherege (Tom Hollander) and wastrel Charles Sackville (Johnny Vegas) and immerses himself in the swinging London social scene, much to the chagrin of his long suffering wife Elizabeth (Rosamund Pike).

Struck by the intensity of the young actress Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton), the earl takes her under his wing and transforms her into the day's leading actress, not before she becomes another one of his conquests though. The scenes between the impassioned Barry and her immodest tutor are some of the film's most effecting with Morton matching Depp's charm with her own distinctive conviction.