In 1660 Charles II was restored to the English Throne ending 11 years of Oliver Cromwell's bleak Puritan rule. Thus began the age of Restoration. It was an era of scientific discovery, artistic exploration and luxurious sensuality.

It was also a time of natural disasters and archaic medical practices. Science was pitted against superstition. This is the story of one man's journey through the light and dark of those times.

This heartwarming movie tells the story of a dissolute young doctor, one Robert Merivel of London, a glover's son. It describes his early promise as a physician, his adoption by the King as a minor favourite at court and his fall from grace, without which he might never have found his true, and accessible love (he was ordered by the Sovereign to marry the King's mistress, so that she might be out of sight of another, jealous mistress, but Merivel is forbidden ever to love her), and the final restoration of all that had been lost to him. In the old sense, a comedy.

Among other things, this movie is a good reminder; what makes a good physician is not just knowledge or technology, but compassion.

I would like to note that Ian McKellen as Master Will Gates of Bidnauld House in Suffolk is one of the few actors I have heard speak with a true Suffolk accent, something I find impossibly nostalgic.