Thinking about the prospect of Johnny Depp playing in the film version of J.P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man, under the direction of Laurence Dunmore, who directed him in The Libertine, I rented the latter film yesterday and enjoyed it immensely as I lay on my bed sipping a nice bottle of "Na Vota" Ruche di Castagnole Monferrato, 2004, same year as the film. I think this could be Johnny Depp's greatest role, which is saying quite a lot. Dunmore's directorial debut is stunning, and John Malkovich is utterly delicious as King Charles II of England. If you missed this film the first time around, I strongly advice you get with it.

This riotous yet moody tragicomedy tells a somewhat varnished version of the true story of the second Earl of Rochester, John Wilmot (1647-1680). A libertine indeed, Wilmot debauched himself to an early grave, yet managed to create an artistic and social sensation during the Restoration. A favorite of the king, whose father had been executed in the Civil War by Cromwell, Wilmot entertained the court with his wit and satirical poetry, which was widely circulated. Wilmot couldn't stay out of trouble. He was thrown in the Tower of London for the forcible abduction of Elizabeth Malet, an heiress he married two years later. He was later banished for lampooning the king in his "History of the Insipids" and in widely circulated broadsides and for mounting scandalous plays such as "Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery."

For all his antics, Wilmot's admirers included Daniel Defoe, Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Hazlitt, Goethe, and the incomparable Voltaire. His twentieth-century biographer was Graham Greene—although the book was censored when first written. I don't want to spoil the story, so just go rent it, but I will say that the film makes the period seem most fascinating, and it also makes me long for the fashions of 1967. I think we were on to something. The Earl of Rochester Depp is splendidly turned out in looks that would have been the envy of Marc Bolan or Syd Barrett. Since I saw this film last night I've been thinking seriously about getting a wig, which was of course how Wilmot and his cronies, "The Merry Gang," maintained such luxuriant locks.