Photo by David ApplebyPuss in Boat: Robert Downey Jr. on a lazy river in "Restoration"
Film of 'Restoration' softens edges of Rose Tremain's royal satire
By Richard von Busack
The craft of monarchy involves making the populace think that a job you've drifted into is one you were destined for. The space between these two attitudes is represented by the difference between the film version of Restoration and Rose Tremain's novel itself.
In the book, the hapless hero, Robert Merivel, a sort of decadent Everyman in 17th-century, Restoration-era England, finds his ends shaped by the whims of King Charles II. He both gains and loses royal favor due to circumstances beyond his control.
In the movie version, Merivel (Robert Downey Jr.) has a definite vocation for healing that he's deliberately turned his back on. Director Michael Hoffman (Soapdish) gives the stumbling Merivel a sense of duty, instead of having him haplessly falling into a realm where one does what one can, because one can do nothing else.
Still, Hoffman has an impressive cast and a gorgeous look to buoy the story. This is one of the most beautiful films about the 17th century ever, lavish in decor and costumes. All the splendor highlights the shrewd Charles II (played with pleasing grandeur by Sam Neill) in the midst of showstopping sets.
Among its many scenic marvels, Restoration shows us an antique planetarium in which King Charles is the center of all orbits; a water festival that the King wades through, heedless of his stockings; and a large-scale model of London, over which he towers, resting his arms on buildings like a colossus.
In his love for the king, Merivel oversteps himself. He is beguiled into a parasitic life as a courtier, loses touch with his vocation and falls from grace, accepting an in-name-only marriage to the king's favorite mistress, Celia (Polly Walker, who has a face and form made for restoration comedy). In doing so, however, he loses everything and ends up chastised by working in a rural asylum run by his old friend Pearce (David Thewlis).
Tremain made the passive Merivel lovable by emphasizing his failures and his appetites. Downey, dressed up like Puss in Boots in a cavalier hat and flowing curls, is a good visual joke, but there's no punchline. He has no dialogue to sharpen his wit upon, and the film doesn't entertain us with his coarse pleasures (Downey, who can look like all seven of the deadly sins at once, is best when he gets his hands on some crude comedy).
As a dramatic actor, Downey is a bit sweaty, while the movie tends to share the primness of Pearce, Downey's Jiminy Cricket-like Quaker chum. Thewlis consummately shows the burden of conscience that weighs down even a just, self-sacrificing and decent man--the slyness of a soul who knows that good works are not enough to conceal his faults as a sinner and a fraud. Still, the film goes long in his death scenes, oblivious to the fact that such a dedicated God-pesterer is half-dead already.
In the supporting cast, Meg Ryan plays a batty Irishwoman. She is better than usual but still not very good in the midst of some extensive third-act troubles and a martyr's demise.
Hugh Grant is amusing as a nasty artist (Tremain's joke was that Merivel, as an amateur painter, had discovered impressionism centuries too early). The marvelous Ian McKellen (Richard III) appears as a dedicated valet, but his performance is problematic. Such a champion villain unwittingly suggests untrustworthiness in even the most innocent scenes.
Restoration is an uncentered movie that simplifies Tremain's subtleties into Dr. Kildare: 1666. Still, in lushness and eventfulness, it's a diverting show. In particular, Neill, as the crowned host of the revels, supplies the emotions royalty used to excite in a long-gone age (and good riddance): the sight of supreme self-confidence so profound that it inspired the viewer to obedience.
Restoration (R; 118 min.), directed by Michael Hoffman, written by Rupert Walters, based on the novel by Rose Tremain, photographed by Oliver Stapleton and starring Robert Downey Jr., Sam Neil, Hugh Grant, David Thewlis, Polly Walker and Meg Ryan.
