The Libertine (2004)

The story begins with John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester (Depp), delivering his prologue, the main themes of which are his fondness for drink, his sexual proclivities and his disdain for his audience. “My name is John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, and I do not want you to like me,” he says.
King Charles II (Malkovich) decides to summon his great friend, the Earl, back to London, retracting a year-long banishment for humiliating him after only three month’s exile. Rochester arrives in London to find his friends in a bawdy house; they are known as the “Merry Gang” and include George Etherege (Hollander) and Charles Sackville (Vegas). On the street, Rochester comes across a thief, Alcock (Coyle), whose frankness about his dishonesty impresses Rochester. He hires Alcock as his gentleman on the spot (“You have the feel of the reign,” Rochester tells him). The Merry Gang introduce its newest member, 18-year old Billy Downs (Friend). Rochester warns Downs, “Young man, you will die of this company.”
Rochester invites Downs to attend a play with the Merry Gang. The group goes to the theatre and sees actress Elizabeth Barry (Morton), who is booed off the stage and then dismissed from her role after defiantly refusing to participate in a curtain call. Rochester is taken with Barry, and after the show he secures re-employment with the company for her, personally delivering the notice to her dressing room. He invites her to meet him at the playhouse the next day to coach her in acting, and she hesitantly accepts. The following day Rochester begins his tutelage of Lizzie Barry and gradually they fall in love. Rochester admitted his infidelity to his wife, Elizabeth that which caused her to leave London prematurely. Meanwhile, Barry’s acting improves dramatically and she delivers a brilliant performance in her next production. The King then approaches Barry, asking her to spy on Rochester to keep track of his progress. Ever the loyal subject, she agrees.
Charles, in need of money from France, asks Rochester to write an extravagant play in honour of the French Ambassador’s visit, hoping it will impress the Ambassador to lend his support. Charles implores Rochester to do it well, but Rochester can’t resist indulging in excess, writing Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery, a scathing satire of the reign, which he claims is indeed “a testament to Charles” — just what the King had asked for. The play involves nude actors having sex on-stage, phallic imagery and props, a backdrop painted to resemble female genitalia, the distribution of ornately carved Italian wooden dildos, characters named “Little Clitoris and “Signoir Dildo,” and a brutal portrayal of the King, played by Rochester himself. At the premiere, Charles coolly interrupts the play, coming up onto the stage to make his displeasure known, and the two have a public showdown. Later, young Billy Downs is killed in a pointless sword fight outside the home of a Constable; Rochester backs away from his dying friend, whispering, “I told you.” This perceived act of cowardice will haunt him for the rest of his meager allotment of days.
Hiding from the King in the English countryside, sick with symptoms of syphillis, Rochester uses the pseudonym “Doctor Bendo” where, with the help of Alcock and the prostitute Jane, he peddles “medical services,” mainly gynaecological “treatments” for women, including the selling of “potions” made from Alcock’s urine. Rochester’s face has become disfigured by a syphillitic gummata which he hides beneath a mask. After six months of this the King finally finds him but decides that the worst punishment possible is to simply “….let you – be you.” Rochester returns to his wife and mother in the country, where he admits to having been constantly under the influence of “the drink” for five years straight. And although Rochester’s health continues to worsen as he plummets toward his agonizingly protracted demise at age 33, it is still apparrent that his wife still loved him despite of his infidelities.
In the meantime, Charles’ unpopular choice of heir, his Roman Catholic brother James, Duke of York, has led to a showdown with Parliament. Parliament is fearful of what will happen when James becomes king. Parliament introduces the Exclusion Bill to deny James the throne, sure to pass by 15 votes. Rochester makes a dramatic entrance into Parliament, wearing a silver nose-piece and heavy pancake makeup to conceal the shocking and repulsive ravages of syphilis and hobbling on two canes. He makes a brief but effective speech, rationally and eloquently denouncing the Bill. As Rochester then hobbles off, the subsequent vote kills the proposed Bill by over 40 votes. He goes to see Barry who reveals they had a daughter together, ironically named Elizabeth like his wife, yet she rejects him.
He returns home to his deathbed where he expires at age 33 with his wife, mother, a priest who was summoned by Rochester’s mother to “bring God to him” as she did not want Rochester to die as an atheist, and Alcock also by his side. Before he died, Rochester was intrigued by the words from Isaiah verse 53 which he asked the priest to recite to him and he also let his wife retell the story of how he had abducted her as an 18 year old lady when they fell in love, which she also recited in the coach on their way to London at the beginning of the film. There is a photographic conceit in which the play about him written by his friend, Etheridge The Man of Mode is shown depicting his death exactly as it actually occurred. The film cuts between the two scenes — the real deathbed, and the staged one. In a final irony, Elizabeth Barry is playing his wife on stage.
The film closes with an epilogue, a similar speech to the one at the very beginning. Rochester slips into the background in the wavering candlelight, sipping his drink and asking repeatedly, growing less arrogant and more vulnerable with each utterance: “Do you like me now?”

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