The Libertine

“He didn't resist temptation. He pursued it.”

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (Johnny Depp), wants to drink, write and bed his way through Restoration London until the money and the wit run out. In 1675 King Charles II (John Malkovich) commissions a play in praise of his reign, and Rochester also takes on Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton), an actress the stage has rejected, to teach her to act. Laurence Dunmore's debut gives Rochester a brilliant mind and a body that is already paying for every night.