Restoration - Movie Review

Rating: 3 out of 5

Robert Downey's schizophrenic personality has finally found a home in Restoration. This sweeping film, set in 1660 England during the reign of the flamboyant Charles II (Sam Neill), tells the story of Merivel (Downey), who rides a rollercoaster from volunteer surgeon to King's veterinarian, to his fall from grace and his eventual rebirth.

Merivel, the kind of guy who pawns his medical instruments to buy time with prostitutes, starts out as a pretty loathsome chap. However, he's also a pretty talented (and daring) physician, and after healing the King's beloved spaniel, he is brought into the fold of nobility. But the story then takes an inexplicable turn as Merivel is given a knighthood and coerced to marry the King's mistress, Celia (Polly Walker), and then promptly falls in love with her.

And just when you get used to this, he is discovered and cast out, penniless. Merivel returns to caring for the poor with his old friend Pearce (David Thewlis), and falls in love with one of his insane patients, Katherine (Meg Ryan, cast as an Irish mental patient, if you can imagine that). And then there's the plague and the big fire that burned down London, and Merivel somehow comes out of this a hero and a changed man to boot.

A downright silly script is the fundamental flaw in Restoration. What starts out as a funny, genuine character-driven drama quickly degenerates into a couple of bland love stories that don't even fit together. There's a lot of good acting here (with the notable exception of Ryan), but the parts don't give the stars a lot of room to work. Neill's King Charles is a true standout, pulling off the dichotomy between royal grace and bawdy humor with ease.

Restoration is also one of the most exquisitely rendered period pieces I've ever seen, replete with fully-laden palaces and disgustingly realistic plague victims. But details do not a movie make, and all-in-all, Restoration comes across as a film in which the sum of the parts is much greater than the picture as a whole.

Facts and Figures

Year: 1995

Run time: 117 mins

In Theaters: Friday 8th March 1996

Distributed by: Miramax

Reviews

Contactmusic.com: 3 / 5

Rotten Tomatoes: 69%
Fresh: 22 Rotten: 10

IMDB: 6.7 / 10

Cast & Crew

Director: Michael Hoffman

Producer: Cary Brokay, Andy Paterson, Sarah Ryan Black

Screenwriter: Rupert Walters

Starring: Robert Downey Jr. as Robert Merivel, Meg Ryan as Katharine, Sam Neill as King Charles II, David Thewlis as John Pearce, Hugh Grant as Elias Finn

Also starring: Robert Downey Jr, Polly Walker, Cary Brokay, Andy Paterson, Sarah Ryan Black, Rupert Walters