Notes

Not too sure about the casting. Really don't see John Malkovich as the Merry Monarch. Maybe Depp should have played King Charles II and Malkovich the Earl of Rochester.

Rosamund Pike was certainly lovely here. Liked her acting very much here. Reminded me of a young Glenda Jackson. Of course Johnny Depp was lovely too.

Wish the story of how they got married would have been included in the film. Seems it was quite interesting, including attempted abduction and she defying her parents.

They have Rochester state that he wants to be a "malicious planet". Not really sure people think of themselves that way, even evil ones. Rather in real life he probably would have said he just likes to have fun.

The film seems to have a grainy texture, particularly noticeable on closeups. I suppose a deliberate choice to go along with idea that the story happened centuries ago?

Didn't recognize Richard Coyle -- Jeff from Coupling -- at all!

The characters are always tramping about in wet mud. Rochester's hands are always literally very dirty. The spirit of things is dark and malicious. Is this supposed to be a deconstruction of Shakespeare in Love where things are happy and clean?

Rochester doesn't seem to think much of his mother. Perhaps the way she reared him has a lot to do with the way he turned out.

They decide to stage Hamlet, but I wonder if such an old play wouldn't have been considered hopelessly outdated in that period. Certainly it wasn't performed as Shakespeare intended it. Shakespeare's plays were staged with music, dancing, thunder, lightning, wave machines, and fireworks. The texts were "reformed" and "improved" in the Restoration era.

The movie gets hard to watch as Rochester becomes riven by disease. Start to wonder why someone wanted to make this into a movie and whether it has preserved at all the original features of the play it is based on.