In 1871, Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis), a successful poet, invites boy prodigy Arthur Rimbaud (Leonardo DiCaprio) to live with him and his young pregnant wife, Mathiltde Maute (Romane Bohringer), in her wealthy father's home in Paris. The wild, eccentric Rimbaud displays no manners or decency whatever, scandalizing Verlaine's pretentious, bourgeois in-laws. Rimbaud's uncouth behavior disrupts the household as well as the society of French poets, but Verlaine finds the youth fascinating. Drunk with absinthe and filled with resentment, Verlaine abuses Mathiltde. Verlaine is seduced by the 16-year-old Rimbaud's physical body as well as by his unique originality and creative mind. He and Rimbaud become gay lovers and abandon Mathiltde. There are reconciliations and partings with Mathiltde and partings and reconciliations with Rimbaud, until in 1873 the sad climax arrives in Brussels. An enraged and practically insane Verlaine shoots and wounds Rimbaud, and is sentenced to prison for sodomy and attempted murder. In prison, Verlaine converts to Christianity. Upon release he meets Rimbaud in Germany, seeking to revive the relationship. However, the two men part, never to meet again. Bitterly renouncing literature in any form, Rimbaud travels the world alone, finally settling in Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia) to run a "trading post". There he has a mistress and possibly a young boy-lover. A tumor in his right knee forces him back to France where his leg is amputated. But the cancer spreads and he dies at the age of 37. Rimbaud's sister says her brother had accepted confession from a priest before he died, so only the censored versions of his poetry should survive. Verlaine pretends to agree but tears up her card after she leaves. Later, Verlaine, drinking absinthe to which he has become addicted, sees a vision of Rimbaud that expresses the love and respect Verlaine has earned.
Based on letters and poems, this film presents a historically accurate account of the passionate and violent relationship between two 19th century French poets at a time of great creativity for both of them. The most powerful thing about this movie is the fascinating on-screen chemistry between DiCaprio and Thewlis, though individually their performances are rather bland. Audacious, demanding and provocative, it doesn't deal with the actual poetry of the men enough. The photography is stunning. Screenwriter Christopher Hampton, a Rimbaud scholar at Oxford adapted "Total Eclipse" from his 1967 play, and said the story is a "means of posing a number of questions around a central puzzle, namely, what does it mean to be a writer? What could one reasonably hope to achieve? What were the pleasures and torments and what, if any, the responsibilities? Might one change the world, or would it prove beyond one's abilities even to change oneself?" Agnieszka Holland directed.
