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# Johnny Depp is The Libertine
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/johnny-depp-is-the-libertine/
- Published: 2005-11-13T18:38:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-26T17:04:50.000Z
- Description: Johnny Depp is The Libertine
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Shea Ramquist, Film Reviews/Hollywood

[](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7b/0b/7b0bd699-d78f-4472-8d29-233bd333f048/content/images/2026/04/ghost-upload-1776721055569-834782-thelibertine%5F0.jpg?ref=mereorthodoxy.com)“Allow me to be frank: you will not like me,” a foppishly dressed Johnny Depp growls directly into the camera. So ends [the trailer](http://www.apple.com/trailers/weinstein/thelibertine/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) for his latest picture, The Libertine. After starring in two straight movies which were widely enjoyed by the public (Finding Neverland and Pirates of the Caribbean), Depp is now making a biopic of [John Wilmot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%5FWilmot%2C%5F2nd%5FEarl%5Fof%5FRochester?ref=mereorthodoxy.com), the second Earl of Rochester. (Ever known for his controversial roles, Depp may be anxious that his pending two-sequel deal on Pirates could, horror of horrors, brand him as a popularly beloved actor.) The Libertine, an art-house project also starring John Malkovich as Charles II, recounts Wilmot’s debauched and treacherous life, and promises to paint the licentious Earl as the consummate anti-hero of the Restoration court.

The film is being marketed as “the most controversial movie of the year”—controversy, of course, being the only way such a movie ever makes money. However, if it lives up to the trailer’s glimpses of sex, lies, and violence, it will simply be yet another film cut from contemporary Hollywood’s cloth. A Tinseltown movie featuring a rogue who shocks his peers with liberal views on sex?! How scandalous! How original! (Competition note: Touchstone Pictures presents their paean to [Casanova](http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/casanova/hd/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) just weeks after The Libertine is released.)

However, there is an element in Rochester’s story that could yield a truly controversial film. In popular British culture of old, John Wilmot was indeed legendary—but not as the foppish gent who, as the movie will highlight, wrote a pornographic play lampooning the king who commissioned it. Instead, Wilmot was renowned as one of England’s most famous deathbed converts to the Christian faith. Should this art-house flick boldly depict Wilmot’s ultimate redemption, should it illustrate the staggering ability of God’s grace to reach even the most desperate sinner—should it show us how a libertine once found true liberty—it may well prove to be the year’s most controversial film.

But my hopes aren’t high. Johnny Depp has already predicted it: I probably won’t like the Libertine.