I’m assuming that somewhere in this movie, underneath all of the drunken debauchery, there was a point to be made. Maybe if I had read the book beforehand I would have better understood the themes that were trying to be conveyed, but I didn’t, and now I’m left wondering about some of the terrible, terrible decisions that went into the making of this film.
Johnny Depp plays Paul Kemp, a nomadic journalist starting a new job at The San Juan Star in 1960s Puerto Rico. Right from the get go we’re shown that Kemp isn’t a man who’s afraid of a hangover, or at least he’s not deterred by one anyway. Soon after he starts his new job he’s approached by a man named Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart) who wants him to write some favourable articles for him in order to secure the land rights of a nearby island. If you didn’t catch all that don’t worry about it. Most of it doesn’t end up going anywhere anyway.
Depp tries really hard to save this film, but he’s constantly hindered by the scattered nature of the script. While I can’t account for the shortcomings of the source material, writer and director Bruce Robinson seems to care more about the drunken antics of Kemp than many of the larger themes he introduces throughout the film. Yes, the movie is called The Rum Diary, but it’s set up like it’s supposed to be a statement piece, and really the only statement it makes is that alcohol is meant to be consumed in moderation.
The worst part is that when it wants to, The Rum Diary can actually show quite a bit of depth. There were at least a few voiceovers scattered throughout the movie, likely the remnants of the book itself, that were quite thought provoking. Unfortunately, they were few and far between and often felt like vain attempts to drive the story forward in the absence of any real plot progression.
Throw onto that a slew of supporting characters that serve basically no function and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Poor Amber Heard, who plays the love interest of Depp and Eckhart, almost disappears off the screen entirely. No effort was made to give her character any sort of motivation at all. In fact, she was apparently deemed so inconsequential that her subplot was resolved off screen at the end of the movie.
Ultimately, The Rum Diary flounders because of its total lack of focus. While fans of Johnny Depp may walk away from this one happy, the rest will be stuck wondering what exactly this film was supposed to be, and unfortunately, I don’t think they’ll find many answers.
