The Robert Downey Jr. Film Guide: Restoration (1995)

A doctor in 17th century England marries the king’s mistress, but is banished for falling in love with her.

High. He’s the star.

Robert Merivel, a doctor who comes full circle in his social status.

Good ... if you like long-haired guys in period costumes.

All right, but the movie isn’t fantastic.

His character is a bit of a womanizer, hooks up with Meg Ryan.

Meg Ryan, Hugh Grant, Ian McKellen, Sam Neill, David Thewlis

Michael Hoffman’s Soapdish and Game Six. Ian McKellen in Richard III.

I went broke making Restoration. This one really put me in the poorhouse, but I love it so much ... That’s [a budget of] about 18 million [dollars], it’s kind of a big deal, they’re saying it looks like it was done for twice as much ... I learned a valuable lesson, which is: sometimes folks are dead-on when they say they can’t afford to do a movie. They are actually in touch with how much they are spending and how much they have to make in order to continue spending in the way they’d like to without getting in trouble with the basics ... The first time they screened this film the test results came back very, very, very poor and I think that was largely because [it was] a period film. This is not the kind of film that is going to get your Toy Story ratings. So don’t worry about it. I think the people involved in the film got very scared and we went back and reshot these scenes and we tried to fix it. I think by trying to fix a film that didn’t need fixing it turned into a big mess ... What I like about Merivel, and what I can relate to, is that he completely admits how ridiculous he is. He loves wine, women, and song. Unlike most people, who the repressed side of them is the wild side, I think the repressed side for Merivel is the diligent, disciplined and religiously driven side ... For the whole debauchery segment, I took a little refresher course by digging into my past ... I remember the day they brought me my costume for the feather scene. That’s what the costume was, a feather, [it was] quite a bit of plumage. But do you know how hard it is to make a feather stay in place while you’re running? We had seventy-five extras in the scene, and there I was with my ass hanging out, out, nowhere to turn. The feather was held in place by an on-site metal coil. It kept getting wet because in the scene I was running and carrying a carafe of grape juice, supposedly wine, and I slopped it on the feather. So they had to hook up a dryer to blow the feather dry. I kept worrying, What if I’ve damaged my appendage for the sake of a sight gag? ... As usual, as I was about to start shooting the lead in a film, I was probably pretty close to a personality meltdown a few weeks before we started shooting. And [Ian McKellen] was very comforting to me, and also, I just became good friends with him ... I just thought [Hugh Grant] was a dick, that’s all. And I still do. You know, and that could be something that has to do with me, or it could just be that not everyone in this industry is someone I’d care to hang out with ... Michael Hoffman said that I never think about how to say the lines that are written the best way, I always think about what else could I say, which is frustrating for a director, but so what? It’s a plus if you have someone who has any talent for writing who ultimately should be the authority on their own character ... There is something about Michael—he’s turned down more films than anyone. He hasn’t done a film since Soapdish, and that’s a long time. And it’s because he is always checking inwardly: “Is this the right thing?” ... Working with Hoffman was really cool, because his primary objective is that his actors have a positive experience personally. And by personally, I mean above and beyond the work itself—in life. Also, he and I are probably the two most likely people to get into a 73-hour cerebellum swap meet over anything. People say, “Oh, you guys sit around and overanalyze things too much.” Maybe you shouldn’t, but then again, maybe sometimes you should. And, if there were ever two guys for the job, then it’s he and I. We can spend hours talking about some kind of minute mythological detail ... Most of the scripts I get end up in the corner all scrunched up after 30 pages, and I’m insulted they even sent it to me. This one feels like we were all meant to be doing this particular film at this particular time. We almost don’t want it to end ... You know, I think sometimes it’s just what is meant to be on a specific film. It was meant to be the hardest, most frustrating, endless, rewarding, wonderful, scary, laugh-a-minute [experience]. We’ve been involved in this project for going on 18 months now, you know. That’s just a long time. If anyone had been told how long a process this film would be, I don’t think a single person in their right mind would have signed on to do it ... When I was doing the film Restoration, playing a 17th-century doctor, I was reading all these old texts and dealing with Charles I and the plague, and you’re reenacting all these things and I’m wearing all these old costumes. I have a feeling that some ghosts just said, “That just looks like it did when I was there. Let me come back down. That’s my kind of party.”

Restoration: A Novel of Seventeenth-Century England by Rose Tremain
The film was based on this novel.

The actors worked for near scale (the minimum amount you can pay someone who’s in the Screen Actors Guild) on the promise that they’d get a percentage of the box office gross, which was only $4 million. Harvey Weinstein, the producer who figured out how to make the movie for half of what it should have cost, said in an interview during filming, “Downey is notoriously rotten on sets. So I said, ‘Be a sweetheart on this movie and I’ll get a special dispensation from my wife, and you and I and Jim Sheridan will go on a four-day bender.’ We’ll probably end up in Afghanistan.” During a press junket funded by the producers of Only You, Weinstein sent staff members to slip notes under the journalists’ hotel room doors suggesting they ask questions about Restoration.

Seventeeth century London and the English countryside.

Released in theaters 29 December 1995. On DVD in Region 1.

Official Restoration Site
Ian McKellen’s Notes on Restoration

Argentina: Restauración (Restoration)
Brazil: O Outro Lado Da Nobreza (The Other Side of Nobility)
Croatia: Restauracija (Restoration)
Denmark: Kongen, hans elskerinde og hendes mand (The King, His Mistress and Her Husband)
Finland: Kuningas, Rakastajatar ja Aisankantaja (The King, His Lover and Her Husband)
France: Le don du roi (The Gift of the King)
Germany: Zeit der Sinnlichkeit (A Time of Sensuality)
Italy: Il Peccate e il Castigo (The Sin and the Punishment)
Japan: The Darkness of Romance, The Light of Love (English translation)
Poland: Oświecenie (Illumination)
Portugal: Restauração (Restoration)
Spain: Restauración (Restoration)
Sweden: Kungen, Älskarinnan och Hennes Man (The King, the Mistress and Her Husband)

68% Fresh | 31 Reviews

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: Downey is really better than the film, embracing the strengths and weaknesses of Merivel in credible fashion.

Barbara Shulgasser, San Francisco Chronicle: Downey, who has had bad luck starring in movies, isn’t charismatic enough to carry this film, either. He is still cute rather than handsome, but his signature irreverence has been tamped down, and without it Downey appears curiously empty.

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Never before in the movies have I seen such a riotous depiction of period London: The overwhelming excess of the royal court, the teeming traffic on the Thames, the bridges groaning with buildings and people, the streets jammed with life and lowlife, the delight in all the pleasures of the flesh — and then, like two grim wake-up calls, the Black Plague and the Great Fire. It is remarkable that this movie, which re-creates a world, cost only about $18 million, and never seems to cut a corner.