Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

I ended up watching Restoration because in one of those flashes of insight, my husband rented it for me. I had acquired the soundtrack and played it incessantly when Dennis noticed the movie one day at the neighborhood video place he picked it up. How bad could it be with Sam Neill, Robert Downey Jr, Meg Ryan, Sir Ian McKellen and Hugh Grant in it?

Did I say bad? Far from it. So far as to be in another country. We loved the movie so much we bought a copy and it never gathers dust.

This movie has no plot.

(Will someone please make sure Robinmichele is alright? I think she may have fallen out of her chair what with the faint from the shock.)

Let me explain while Robinmichele comes to her senses. We have been in the same writing group off and on for years now and she has been listening to me give the same critique for years. "Yes, it’s beautiful and rich, but I can’t tell where it’s going. It has no plot." For me, plot is the point and why bother if there is none?

So back to the amazing plotless wonder, Restoration.

This movie is set about 1660 and centers around Robert Downey Jr’s character, Robert Merivel. Merivel is a gifted doctor, but spends most of his time gambling and whoring. He is spotted by King Charles II and made doctor to the King’s dogs. You might think this would upset the talented Merivel, but he’s been wasting his talent anyway and this gig pays better. The costumes he buys are pretty outlandish, but not for the period. The king then discovers he needs to get rid of his secondary mistress to avoid upsetting his primary mistress so he marries her off to Merivel and shunts them off to the country where she struggles to get back in his favor and Merivel falls madly in love with her (despite the fact that the king told him that was the one thing he wasn’t to do.) Before I reveal the entire story line let me sum this up. Merivel needs to realize that he is just a petty man squandering his gift and chasing what he cannot have. Fate intervenes, there’s a madwoman, a plague and a fire and a sort of happy ending. But a sort of happy ending that makes total sense.

Robert Downey Jr is magnificent. Despite his personal problems, he’s an astoundingly good actor (possibly because of the latter he has the former.) His portrayal of Merivel as a twit, then a twit realizing that he's a twit, then as a changing man is absolutely dead on and believable (even when he’s wearing outlandishly feathered hats).

Sam Neill is incredibly convincing as a king. He plays the role with a sense of power that many actors who play kings fail to grasp. He’s almost otherworldly. The closest role he’s played to this one is Norman Lindsey in Sirens where he was also an extraordinary, other worldly character.

Polly Walker plays the mistress who is shallow, conceited and madly in love with the king. Or at least with the king’s power, it’s hard to tell which and if you asked king’s mistresses throughout the ages, I’ll bet many of them didn’t know either.

Hugh Grant played a sniveling, toadying portrait painter so much like many of his early roles.

Sir Ian McKellen is Merivel’s valet at the country estate. He is so good in the role I have a hard time remembering he’s also Gandalf.

Meg Ryan is the mad woman. Her husband walked out on her and now she’s afraid to go to sleep because someone else might leave her. There are those cute, perky Meg Ryan moments in this performance, but there are tortured moments and just plain crazy moments too. I’ve never seen her better.

If you like historicals you will love this. It’s so dirty, it almost smells. The story spans from the docks to the palace. It would also give a good template for someone studying the period. Ok, there’s sex. Not graphic sex, but if Merivel doesn’t have sex with Katharine they won’t get kicked out of the insane asylum. I wouldn’t turn a ninth grader loose on this alone, but with supervision it should be ok.


Sample dialogue:
Katharine: You know, in Ireland a man with a horse, a cart and a book he knows how to read is the catch of the county.

Robert Merivel: Well, perhaps when we have made fire of the cart and eaten the horse and wiped our @sses with the book, you'll become better acquainted with what you have caught.


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older