Restoration
Reviewed by Justin Champion, professor of the history of ideas, Royal Holloway, University of London, whose most recent book is Republican Learning: John Toland and the crisis of Christian culture, 1696–1722 (2003).
RATING: 6
US/UK, 1995
Director Michael Hoffman
Screenwriter Rupert Walters
Cinematography Oliver Stapleton
Music James Newton Howard
Production design Eugenio Zanetti
Cast Robert Downey Jr (Robert Merivel), Sam Neill (Charles II), David Thewlis (John Pearce), Polly Walker (Celia Clemence), Meg Ryan (Katharine), Ian McKellen (Will Gates), Hugh Grant (Elias Finn)
Set in the newly restored court of Charles II (Neill) in the 1660s, Restoration tells a tale of the rakish and talented young medic Robert Merivel (Downey) who by a series of misunderstandings – for instance, he cures the king’s ailing hound – becomes the beneficiary of royal patronage.
Once at court, he becomes a pawn in the saturnine Charles II’s amorous intrigues, eventually agreeing to marry Celia Clemence (Walker), one of the monarch’s favourite mistresses, in return for a baronetcy, an estate and the good life. Predictably Merival falls in love with the royal paramour, loses the king’s favour and is plunged into ruin.
The rest of the film is driven by a narrative of redemption and trial, as Merivel joins a Quaker community tending to the mad, impregnates Katharine, one of his charges, performs a Caesarean section, survives the Great Plague and the Fire of London and finally recovers royal favour by ‘healing’ Celia.
Squalor and piety
Loosely based on Rose Tremain’s 1991 novel, the film was, according to the critics, a ‘brilliant evocation of time and place’. Some noted its ‘vivid authenticity’, while others emphasised the spectacular and impressive recreation of life in 1660s London. The libertinism of the court, the squalor of urban life, the piety of the Quakers, the fragility of social status and the primitive nature of medical knowledge at the time are explored in the progress of the rise and fall (and rise again) of Robert Merivel.
However, in historical terms, the opulence and dramatic splendour of the restored court, dominated by the sexual whims of Charles II, are both overdrawn and surprisingly coy. There’s a great deal of sexual intrigue and naughtiness, but very little political context.
Medical knowledge
Interestingly the film does represent Charles as pursuing an interest in natural philosophy: Merivel is welcomed into a large room in Whitehall stuffed with astronomical and horological instruments, as well as alchemical, medical and antiquarian activities and objects (there’s a marvellous scene of a toad being dissected). As contemporary paintings show – for instance, Marcellus Laroon’s Charles II as a patron of the Royal Society (1684) – the king’s patronage of the fledgling Royal Society gave what we would call today ‘science’ great social and political cachet.
Medical knowledge punctuates the film – in particular, the reputation of William Harvey. He is mentioned a number of times, and on his death bed, the Quaker John Pearce (Thewlis) passes on his copy of Harvey’s great work on the circulation of the heart to Merival, his friend and medical colleague. However, whether a lowly medical practitioner would have referred to these texts to cure the mad is debatable.
Eclecticism
As a healer, Merivel is perhaps based on the Irish ‘stroker’ Valentine Greatrakes, whose claims to cure scrofula – traditionally the preserve of the miraculous ‘royal touch’ – scandalised society of the 1660s. Merival manages to contrive cures for madness, plague and other fevers by the application of herbs and common sense.
The portrayal of the eclecticism of 17th-century medicine is reasonably accurate, but the way people at the time viewed the plague is typically distorted. Merivel is seen arguing against the sensible practice of ‘shutting up’ the sick and the healthy together in quarantine. Although there is evidence that some contemporaries defended this view, the great majority believed that plague was as much a problem of order as it was a medical issue – and ‘shutting up’ was the most effective method of avoiding the dangers of disorder.
Inaccuracies
Despite the fact that the film gives an accurate portrayal of how the plague devastated the City of London – plague pits, piles of corpses, weeping and a-wailing abound – there are a few major and some minor historical inaccuracies.
Charles II did not stay in London: like most of the political élite, he fled with the court very early on in the epidemic – initially to Salisbury, then to Oxford. In a couple of scenes, we see dogs scavenging in the streets. However, University of York historian Mark Jenner has shown – in his essay ‘The Great Dog Massacre’ – how such ‘curs’ were systematically destroyed because people at the time believed that they were carriers of disease. And the biggest and most obvious historical inaccuracy is the conflation of the ending of the plague (September 1665) with the outbreak of the Great Fire (a whole year later).
Sexual contest
While the theme of medical redemption is the backcloth to the film, the main narrative is driven by the sexual contest between king and Merivel. These scenes are enacted in opulent and luxurious circumstances inside and out: the costume, décor and furnishings of the court contrast with the dull browns of normal interiors. Although this reconstruction is beautiful (the film won an Oscar for its costumes and art direction), compared with some of the paintings of the period it seems rather restrained. (See, for example, the images in Painted Ladies: Women at the court of Charles II.)
Restoration court culture was, by modern standards, exceptionally explicit. Much of the semi-pornographic literature and conduct had a profoundly political point. In Sodom, a play possibly composed for the court, the earl of Rochester drew a comparison between the sexual ambitions and debauchery of Charles II and his political reputation for absolutism: ‘My pintle shall my only sceptre be [and] with my prick I’ll govern all the land.’
Shocking howlers
The connections between pleasure and debauchery, and between love and lust, are some of the historical themes explored in the film, but they are done in a remarkably polite manner. However, to have been historically accurate, the language and conduct would have had to have been much more bawdy, explicit and erotic, and undoubtedly, such a film would have appalled the censors. The world of the Restoration rakes was much more brutal and debauched than the rather foppish portrayal here (Hugh Grant as the painter Finn is a case in point). Figures such as Rochester had a bleak and pessimistic view of humanity and relationships between the genders, which was expressed most graphically in the earl’s satires of court life and love.
However, the film is fun. As far as it goes, it does give a slightly more believable and plausible account of élite courtly culture than many other films. There are some shocking howlers, but there’s also some sensitive engagement, particularly the portrayal of the Quaker community and its treatment of the insane.
For more about the film – and the lives and times that it depicts – have a look at the Restoration website created by its producers Miramax. It is rather crude but nevertheless contains links to some very good information related to the film.
For Justin Champion’s own thoughts on ‘Seeing the Past’, see his review of Simon Schama’s History of Britain.
