Johnny Depp's performance stretches his thespian envelope, but other than that this film is a disaster. The romance between Rochester and Elizabeth Barry is missing one thing -- romance. The idea that Charles II would expect Rochester to do a 180 and write something wonderful for him, and not even read it or view it before using it for to entertain the visiting French ambassador, well, that's beyond absurd. Charles had endured ten years of Rochester's vicious lampoons and knew Rochester too well to place his faith in such a philosophical reversal.<br /><br />The film was shot in such low light that I thought I must have glaucoma. Every scene! The last quarter of the film concerns Rochester's slide toward death, which probably owed to syphilis, but unfortunately they chose to use makeup which made him look worse than Robert Englund in The Phantom of the Opera.<br /><br />The film concerns itself almost solely with Rochester's general cynicism and his hostility toward the monarchy, but never ventures an explanation for his malaise (he was probably suffering PTSD from his experiences, at age 17, in three disastrous battles in the Royal Navy during the Dutch Wars). Saddest of all, the film misses the heart of the man, a man who was the greatest wit and lover of his age, a man who relished life and lived it to the fullest, but who also recognized the absurdity of the idea that man is a "rational animal." Disappointing film.