The Libertine (2005)


John Malkovich          King Charles II
Johnny Depp             John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
Samantha Morton         Elizabeth Barry
Rosamund Pike           Elizabeth Malet
Tom Hollander           George Etherege
Johnny Vegas            Charles Sackville
Kelly Reilly            Jane
Jack Davenport          Harris
Richard Coyle (II)      Alcock
Rupert Friend           Downs

Directed by:            Laurence Dunmore
Produced by:            Chase Bailey, Ralph Kamp, Louise Goodsill


'The Libertine' follows the adventures of John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester, in London of the 
17th century. He has a passionate romance with a young actress, Elizabeth Barry, and he writes a 
scurrilous play which lampoons the monarch who commissioned it, Charles II, leading to the Earl's 
banishment and eventual downfall.

In 1660, with the return of Charles II to the English throne, theater, the visual arts, science and 
sexual intercourse flourish. Thirteen years later, in the middle of political and economical problems, 
Charles II asks the return of his friend John Wilmot, aka the second Earl of Rochester, from the exile 
to London. John is a morally corrupt, drunkard and sexually active cynical poet, and the King asks him 
to prepare a play for the French ambassador to make him pleased. John meets the aspirant actress 
Elizabeth Barry in the playhouse and decides to make her a great star. He falls in love for her, and she 
becomes his mistress; during the presentation to the Frenchman, he falls in disgrace in the court. When 
he was thirty-three years old, he was dying of syphilis associated to alcoholism and he converted to a 
religious man.