Happy Halloween, everyone! I know this isn't technically a Halloween movie but absolutely everyone reviews horror movies for Halloween.I don't know that I could recommend this movie to a lot of people. Not because it's a bad movie per se but because I think you have to have a certain level of self-loathing to relate to the character and I would hope that none of you have the misfortune to identify. Suffice to say that I do.
The story is based on the sordid life of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, a favored poet of King Charles II's court. He had the dubious distinction of being infamous in his own time due to the very public satires he performed about the king and other exploits, such as abducting a promising heiress from her coach necessitating their marriage.
The film portrays him as a man overrun with his personal demons, a man seeking to lose himself. He loves the creative outlet of the theater but simultaneously hates it for the fickle nature of its patrons. He's the kind of man who works to make others love him but never know him because if they get too close they would see the cracks running throughout an outwardly brilliant gem. To this end, he sabotages every relationship. He doesn't give a shit about what anyone thinks, not his peers, not his detractors, unless it's amusing. He craves the attention and limelight but despises the fools stupid enough to give it to him. Boredom is his constant enemy. A genius, yes, but a cruel one.
The thing about self-destructive people is that they do eventually destroy themselves. Rochester dies from a combination of severe alcoholism and numerous venereal diseases.
So, not an uplifting film by any standard. It does provide a very good public service message for anti-depressants, though.
This will have to count as my Christy experiment for the month. She originally wanted me to watch either Apocalypto or Crash but I just didn't have time to get to either of them. Still, tomorrow is another day and another month as it happens.
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