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Nobody would blame you for thinking a film about two real-life poets would be a real snoozapalooza, but Pandaemonium is actually quite entertaining, thanks to fine direction from The Filth and the Fury's Julien Temple Set in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Pandaemonium tells the story of the strange relationship between William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the latter of whom made a name for himself by creating some beautiful, opium-induced poems.
The film opens in London, where Wordsworth (John Hannah, The Mummy Returns) is hosting a gathering of the top poetic minds. Even though Wordsworth is considered to be dull and boring by contemporaries like Lord Byron and Robert Southey, he is the top candidate to become the country's Poet Laureate. Suddenly, Coleridge (Linus Roache, Wings of the Dove) appears, bent out of his mind and barely able to speak as he attempts to pay tribute to his longtime friend. A glass of wine is knocked over in slow-motion, and Pandaemonium flashes back to the genesis of their friendship.
Years ago, in pre-revolution France, Coleridge and his wife Sara (Samantha Morton, Jesus' Son) attempted to create a rural Utopia in which everyone called each other "Citizen" (including their first child, who was known as Citizen Baby). The Coleridge clan was joined by Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy (Emily Woof, Velvet Goldmine) and wife Mary (Emma Fielding).
Coleridge and Wordsworth seemed to inspire themselves, even though most of their work seemed to revolve around tedious subjects like domestic life. They dreamt of writing experimental poetry in an attempt to abandon the stuffy prose of the time. Then Coleridge started taking opium for a toothache, as many of us do, which led to the haunting style by which he made his name. Some of the poems, like "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," disturb Coleridge to the point of insanity, which is how "Kubla Kahn" was born. In the meantime, as Coleridge's drug-addled success grows, Wordsworth becomes increasingly jealous, and his writer's block leads him to come up with memorable lines like "I wandered lonely as a cow."
Pandaemonium is livened up by Temple's style, which is highlighted by odd scene transitions that include modern conveniences like airplanes and cell phones. Writer Frank Cottrell Boyce, who penned the story of two creative women in Hilary and Jackie, does a good job at establishing the relationship between the two poets, especially in making Coleridge as addicted to Wordsworth as he was opium. The acting leads do well, especially Roache, who should be getting a lot more feature-film work that he currently does. And make sure you stick around for the closing credits, which dissolve into a music video for the song "Xanadu." Or perhaps you should flee the theatre.
2:00 - PG-13 for drug content
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