RESTORATION
A film review by John Schuurman
Copyright 1996 John Schuurman
Directed by Michael Hoffman Reviewed by John Schuurman
In 1660 England awakens to a "New Age." What the Cavaliers like to call "Enlightenment" returns after a dismal rule of a dozen or so years by Cromwell and his gloomy Puritans. Now, at last, "rich men can go to heaven agai n." The charming Charles II is restored to the throne and sets up what has long been regarded as England's most decadent court. Megalomaniac that he is, he also makes plans for one of the most ambitious building projects ever known to man, a tribute to his royal person.
But not everything is so "enlightened" and free of shadow. Not all flesh delights. For there still lingers in the land the superstitions of the masses and the unctuous airs of the religious; but more than them all, the Bl ack Plague, that indiscriminate killer of millions, is rumored to be lurking again. As the fun guy Charles II says in one of his reflective moments, "The plague rouses men from their sleep."
RESTORATION is a fine film surrounded by this conflicted world. Michael Hoffman and his army of technical and research people, have restored to us this time and place. We have seen a lot of cinematic treatments of various periods of English history of late, "Brave Heart," "Rob Roy," "Sense and Sensibility," and "Persuasion," to name but a few, but I don't recall one so careful and so splendid. This is painstaking film-making at its very best.
RESTORATION is what the industry calls "A Coming of Age" film. But it is not as innocuous a coming of age as most of Hollywood's fare. A sign on the doorpost of a Quaker asylum for the mentally ill quotes Isaiah 48:10 "Be hold, I have refined thee in the furnace of affliction." We can watch the burning away of the character's baser elements on several levels.
Walking us through the tumultuous time and countryside is a gifted but licentious young physician, Rowe Merivel. His life is in disarray from the outset because of his philandering; his taste for women even gets him into trouble in the court of Charles. As we travel with Rowe, we marvel and wonder at the sumptuous life. We also share the consternation of his good friend and fellow physician, John Pierce, a quiet (and not at all unctuous) Quaker. John sees in Rowe someone that God has uniquely gifted with a surgeon's heart and hands. We, with John, hate it when we see Rowe waste the gift. But as tumult moves into ever greater tumult, we see Rowe "come of age." With each new trouble, we see more of the man, less of the baser nature. There is within him something we hoped we would see and at the end he is responsible, respected and (probably) chaste.
Something similar happens to Charles, and, (since the king is the microcosm of the country), to merry old England herself, (you can do this kind of thing in the movies). As the plague creeps in and attacks the kingdom and the royal household, Charles and England experience refinment in the furnace of affliction too. The great fire of London in 1666 is what it takes to purge the city of the plague. It also purges Charles of his grand desig ns. At the end, we see the two of them chastened (if not chaste)
For more reviews by John Schuurman see: http://www.mcs.com/%7Esjvogel/wcrc/movies.html
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