The Rum Diary (2011)

The heat does a great deal of the work in The Rum Diary. Clothes seem uncomfortable, rooms feel temporary, and the next drink offers an easy way to postpone a decision. For a film about a journalist finding his convictions, it is an appropriately compromising atmosphere.

Bruce Robinson’s adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s novel follows Paul Kemp, played by Johnny Depp, to Puerto Rico. The attractions are immediate. So are the people who hope to turn those attractions into something they can own and sell.

The view and the deal

The film is strongest when pleasure and exploitation occupy the same frame. The landscape is beautiful, the company can be entertaining, and an invitation may carry obligations that become clear only after it has been accepted. Kemp’s work places him close enough to this world to feel its pull.

Depp’s performance gives the character an air of practiced detachment. He can look amused by a situation before he has quite admitted his part in it. That manner is enjoyable, although it makes Kemp’s movement toward a moral position feel less like a discovery than the recovery of something misplaced.

The drinking and disorder provide much of the comedy. At their best, they reveal a group of people becoming less capable of managing the lives they keep explaining to one another.

Finding a position

The film’s difficulty is in giving this drifting experience a firm conclusion. Its clearer statements of purpose can feel imposed on a story whose most convincing moments are confused, compromised and unfinished.

Still, there is something appealing in its attempt to show a writer learning what deserves his attention. The atmosphere lingers longer than the resolution: a failing professional routine, a seductive offer, and the uncomfortable realisation that enjoying the view may already make you part of the deal.