Libertinage dangereux

Over at Videogum, my favorite recurring feature is The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time. What makes it so great is that they don't go for the obvious dreck -- anything from the Scary Movie franchise or starring a cross-dressing Eddie Murphy, for instance. No, they go straight for the jugular of movies that people (sad, misguided people) actually might have liked, movies that were packed with Important Ideas, trying-too-hard movies that may, in their time, have been envisioned as Oscar-bait.

Having recently watched The Libertine, I immediately found myself composing a mental HFTWMOAT review, and now that my impotent rage has waned to mild irritation, I think I'm finally fit to type it out. And lest ye worry about spoilers, let me stress that this movie is already as spoiled as the rubbery carrots that have been slowly putrefying at the bottom of your fridge for the better part of a year. Have no fear. I've taken the bullet, so feel free to sit back and observe the carnage.

The biggest problem with The Libertine is that it starts out with so much promise. Here we have a sultry-eyed Johnny Depp (yes!) in period costume (yes!!) playing the "notorious rake," satirical poet, and general bisexual orgy-having man-about-town, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (yes!!!)... and aside from a few nipple-slips, there's hardly even five total minutes of erotic content (uh, what?). In the opening scene, Johnny (you know you've got a potential disaster on your hands when the main character has the same name as the actor) stares straight into the camera and deadpans a sultry monologue on how he is "always up for it" with women and men alike, how we should all think about him the next time we shag, and how we're really, really not going to like him. Oh, how right he is.

Though this intro is probably the most titillating part of the whole film, already there are signs that something is rotten in 17th century London. For all the hotness of hearing Johnny Depp pepper his blithely artificial British accent with an assortment of period-appropriate obscenity, I couldn't help feeling like this was more of an audition piece than the first scene of a major Hollywood film. Any minute, I expected Mr. Depp to bow his head, then raise it again, fixing the camera with a Tobias Funke style shit-eating grin, triumphantly declaring: "aaaand scene!" It's fairly bizarre that he was so incapable of getting into a part that was clearly written for him, and it's even more bizarre that a large chunk of the central plot revolves around Johnny giving acting lessons to an aspiring Shakespearean leading lady (played by the wasted talent of the lovely Samantha Morton, who for some inexplicable reason is always referred to in film diegesis as the "plain girl," when it is clear that in real life she would be referred to as "smoking hot.")

And that's just the start of the troubles. Because when the movie picks up, it becomes clear that everything Johnny Depp just said viz. pricks and cunts and other teasing hints of sexual congress is a complete and total lie. For a film about a libertine, called The Libertine, there is shockingly little in the way of libertinage. Nothing, in fact. It turns out that Johnny is married to a beautiful, if somewhat frosty English heiress and loves the shit out of her in the most doofy, boring, unlibertine-like way. And then he falls in love with Samantha Morton's character and goes head-over-heels for her, also in the most doofy, boring, and thoroughly adolescent way. This movie should have been called The Failed Hetero-normative Love Conquests of Mister Johnny Wilmot, Aged 28 and been rated PG-13. It could've starred Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles and played well to the early high school set. In fact, the only love scene in the whole damn two hour spree of terrible is so cloyingly candlelit, soft-music-accompanied, passionately makeouty, and utterly fake that its predecessor can only be the canonical "first time" scene of a teen dramedy.

And, lest you imagine that this two-hour-long simpering soft-core lovefest could somehow be ameliorated by the continued presence of a dashing Depp in ruffles, frills, and wanton curls -- sadly, you are mistaken. Not even that pleasure is given to us, the much-abused fangirl/boy audience, because halfway through the film Johnny gets leprosy and spends the next hour horrifying us with peeling skin lesions and an artificial nose.

Along with the alarming lack of sex in a movie that promises it in buckets, there is also a ridiculous attitude toward the idea of libertinage in general. The OED defines a libertine not only as a lusty Don Juan, but as someone "acknowledging no law in religion or morals; free-thinking; antinomian." At first, it seems that this ubermensch-y definition of a libertine is being taken quite seriously, albeit with the characteristic ham-fistedness of a directorial debut. The King invites Johnny back to court so he can use his powers of charisma to charm people into backing various monarchic policy, but Johnny balks and refuses to be a royal puppet. "I know it's fun to be against things, but there comes a time when you must be for things, as well" -- actual quote from "The King," played by an egregiously fake-nosed John Malkovich. Subtle! But. The rest of the film belabors the point that being against things is inherently bad, that it ruins your life, that if you do it too long, you'll catch leprosy and have to wear an artificial nose (though still not one as ugly as Malkovich's putty prosthetic). In other words, this is a good old-fashioned morality play, and a boring and predictable one at that. It's also pretty transparently "topical." In the stunningly unwatchable "climactic" last scene, the leprosy-ridden Johnny finally performs his long-awaited service to His Majesty, crashing a session of Parliament and giving a rousing speech on the importance of trial by jury. As this film was released in 2004 -- right around the time of the heated debates on the restriction of habeas corpus for terrorist suspects -- Johnny's speech is clearly meant to win some hearts and minds with cheerily vacuous liberal self-congratulation. Except: Johnny is still all leprotic, and he's still hopelessly in love with a woman who doesn't love him back, and his only literary legacy is a poem called "Signor Dildo." He's a miserable wreck, and he's the poster-child for the anti-"War on Terror" camp? Is that really the artifical-nose-wearing, weeping-sores face of a "free-thinking, antinomian" individual? The face that launched a thousand Neo-Cons, I guess.

Other assorted outrages:

John Malkovich's fake nose. Honestly, it's just the worst. The horror could easily have been averted if they'd stuck to full-face closeups, except some brilliant cinematographer decided to film an entire scene with The King in profile in front of a really bright sunset. You can literally see the real tip of John Malkovich's nose twitching under layers of glowing, semi-transparent putty. Awful.

Female stereotype count: Hooker with a heart of gold? Check. Endlessly faithful and devoted wife? Check. Bitchy judging mother? Check. Ambitious girl who knows that love = failure and thus becomes a cold, loveless shrew in order to be successful? Indeed.

The last scene, where all the brash and bravado from the opening have given way to a desperate, teary-eyed Depp pleading for the audience to like him. It's just too, too much. If you're really so desperate for public approval, Johnny, maybe you should just stick to pirates -- that's something people seem to like.