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Friday, June 3, 2011

Flashback 2: Restoration (1995)


Before I found blogging, and at a time when I was too chicken to let anyone read my stuff, I spent hours writing about things I liked in various notebooks. Needless to say, I have endless supply of Gems in my old drawers and desks. Today, I was going through my old notebooks when I found about a nice movie I had written about almost 2 years back. This is entry from 25th Feb 2009.

I saw a great movie called “Restoration”, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Meg Ryan. 
Poster for Restoration
It’s absolutely great. I mean it isn’t a classic or anything, or even close; it’s not a touchy-feely beautiful movie but a story so simple, so poignant, it hurts. It a story of a young man - a skilled medical student with high dreams and aspirations; of choices he makes and the effect it has on him and others around him. The story set in the mid 17th century England, in the years preceding the Plague epidemic and the Great Fire of London, and has some fairly Graphic images of streets, illness and ailments and patients, practices and beliefs – everything.

The movie begins in a hospital in England, where two of most brilliant students are studying. One is Robert Merivel (Downey Jr.), wasted but good with medicines and high ambitions, costly needs but no money; other is John Pearce (David Thewlis), brilliant but simple, who confines to traditions and places more trust in prayers than science. One day, Merivel is invited to the court of the King, Charles II (Sam Neill) to treat a severely ailing patient who turns out to be the King’s favourite dog. He succeeds and is offered a position in the court as “Duke of Bidnold”, a position he readily accepts while John chooses to remain behind and continue with his medicine. He adjusts easily to the life of luxury, distancing from medicine and pursuing things like stars and astronomy. Because of his funny, lovable and trustworthy nature, he soon becomes the King’s favourite and is promptly married off to Lady Celia (Polly Walker), the King’s jealous mistress, to prevent any issues on the Queen’s part. He immediately falls in ‘unrequited’ love with her, and tries everything in his power to make her fall in love with him. He is assisted by his butler, Will (Sir Ian McKellan) and a painter Elias Finn (Hugh Grant) who was commissioned by the King to create the Lady’s portrait. It is King’s desire that the Lady join him as soon the portrait is finished, so they keep postponing the unveiling. That is, until the King pays an unexpected visit, finds the truth and kicks Merivel out, forfeiting all his titles, lands and monies.

Having nowhere to go, he decides to pay his old friend John, now doctor at Mr. Pearce and the Quaker Mental Institute, a visit. Here is offered a temporary position as a Quack which he accepts because they also provide a place to live. He meets various patients including a widow, Katherine who is suffering from Insomnia. He is horrified at the treatments employed to cure the patients, like bleeding (to drain the demon) and starts prescribing his own cures, making him a radical but effective and loved doctor. During his stay John catches consumption and Merivel who had “forgotten” medicine tries everything in his power to cure his friend but in vain. In his frustration, he has a fling with Katherine. John dies and Kate announces she is pregnant.

When the term of his job ends, he leaves the institute with his woman. He goes back to London to his old home only to find it abandoned and the city hit by plague. It is here that he tries to keep his wife safe, learning to love her and for once, receiving love in return. They plan to build a beautiful house and a better world with their son, ‘John’. Here Katherine asks him why he doesn’t love her and he, having seen only unrequited love and rejection, replies that “I never learnt to love back” (It just broke my heart!). But in his own way, he does love her. Also, he fears he will suffer from plague or consumption and starts preventive treatment upon himself. Soon Katherine gives birth to a girl (no John), tells Robert to call her Margaret (her first daughter whose death was the reason of her insomnia in the first place) and dies in his arms.

Merivel goes to work in the plague stricken areas, being the only doctor actually willing to commit to plague stricken patients. Every day, he writes, in his diary, to his daughter stating that if he should ever become ill, he won’t return; but he always returns. It is also here, that people somehow start mistaking him for John Pearce, which he makes no move to correct. One day, he is summoned to courts to treat the Queen for plague. He wears a gear (like a fireman’s suit) as a precaution. He is surprised to find that Queen is Lady Celia, his ex-wife, and is not suffering from plague, only pregnant. He treats her, but refuses to remove his helmet for either her or the King.

Just then a messenger arrives with the news about the Great Fire. He races home to find almost half of London, including his hospital and his house destroyed in the fire. In his desperation to find his daughter and her nurse, he slips down the stairs and lands in a boat, comatose. The boat drifts down the river, landing at a place where Robert Merivel is recognised. He wakes up after a few days, much to his surprise, in his old butler Will’s home. He is informed that fate brought him to Bidnold, his old estate. When he asks for Margaret, they think he is suffering from deliriums. But he assures them he's quite alright and that Margaret is his daughter who was lost in the Great Fire. He hopes for news about her but, sadly, there is none. He starts mourning for his lost daughter, when they are interrupted by the arrival of the King. Robert Merivel, ex-courtier, bows down before his King.

King, “When Lady Celia was ill (Robert fains ignorance, “Was she?”), she was treated by a friend of yours, Dr. John Pearce. Only she didn’t think so, and neither did I, a doubt confirmed by the arrival of a nurse bearing a child, asking for Dr. Robert Merivel. A child, I believe, to be yours.” The King steps aside to reveal the nurse and the baby. Robert is overjoyed.

Merivel reunites with his daughter and King Charles II restores his titles.
The King leaves, but not before granting Sir Robert Merival all his lands and titles back. Robert accepts but leaves Bidnold, with his daughter Margaret to continue his work as a doctor. His last lines, as the screen fades to black, are to his daughter, “The fire in its fury has consumed the great plague. Misfortune may leave behind unlooked-for blessings... none dearer than you, my little Margaret. I will return to the city, to my work as a doctor, and the rebuilding of the King's Hospital. The stars that once confused me seem now to light a path that is clear, that I have in truth been traveling for all these days. Where I met what came, and left behind my sorrows. And I am traveling still.

The footnote reads: Gimme some credit people, I spent last 6 hours writing it.