Depp at his decadent best

Contrary to rumour, Laurence Dunmore's feature debut about the debauched second Earl of Rochester is neither dull nor bad. It is, in fact, the best British costume drama I've seen in years.

An adaptation by Stephen Jeffreys of his own play, it is intelligently written, beautifully played and directed with a menacing sense of the underbelly of the reign of Charles II.

It may use more four-letter words than we're used to, but this is no pretty-pretty view of the 17th century. And perhaps it twists history a trifle, but not half as much as Shakespeare in Love.

Johnny Depp plays John Wilmot, the earl whom Charles appointed as his poet laureate until he wrote a play called Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery, which the King thought parodied him and his court.

"You will not like me," says Wilmot, addressing the audience in a prologue. And we don't, since he proceeds to squander a remarkable talent with drink and any kind of sex you care to think about and, as we know from the history books before we start, he dies of alcoholism and the pox before reaching middle-age.

The story mainly concerns Wilmot's fondness for his wife (Rosamund Pike) and prostitute mistress (Kelly Reilly), and his love for the free-spirited actress
Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton) who refuses to become his chattel.

Depp triumphantly manages to suggest the small bit of good that remains in Wilmot's soiled and cynical soul; we might not be able to like the earl but we do believe in him. The actor has seldom done anything better, avoiding the kind of star performance you might expect and widening his range considerably in the process. Morton shows why she has twice been an Academy Award nominee.

And John Malkovich, in one of his best and least mannered performances, is almost unrecognisable as Charles, hoping against hope that the earl's play will impress the French enough to prevent hostilities.

The one moment in the drama that seems a sop to the audience is the dying earl's address to a fractious Parliament, which saves the King's bacon in the penultimate reel. That, and the sliding over the earl's persistent bisexuality.

Otherwise The Libertine doesn't mince its words. It's a dark, brooding, murderously probable picture of a man who was a bit like a self-destructive rock star long before such creatures were invented.

The Libertine
Cert: cert18