Channel 4′s new documentary about last year’s Johnny Depp–Amber Heard libel trial arrives days after Depp received a seven-minute standing ovation at Cannes and months after Heard reportedly quit Hollywood for Spain, where she is said to be living outside Madrid with her two-year-old daughter.
Is Depp redeemed? Not entirely: it may be a while before Hollywood puts him back in a tentpole (though rumours are already swirling of a possible return to Pirates of the Caribbean). But he is no longer a shunned figure. The opposite is the case with Heard, who is gone and semi-forgotten.
Who do you believe? Heard is upbraided for crying in the witness box. Depp is grumpily stoic aside from an unintentionally amusing exchange in which he objects to the word ‘megapint’ about a glass of wine he poured as Heard secretly filmed him
There is much to be delved into here about the way famous men are allowed a redemption story where women generally are not. But in the first of three nightly episodes, Depp v Heard (Channel 4, Sunday, 9pm) is careful not to overreach. Instead its director, Emma Cooper, gives us a blow-by-blow reprisal of the trial, in which Depp sued Heard for libel over a Washington Post opinion piece from 2018 in which she described herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse”.
Who do you believe? Heard was upbraided for crying in the witness box – the internet concluded that she was a “terrible actress”. Depp is grumpily stoic aside from an unintentionally amusing exchange in which he objects to the word “megapint” about a giant glass of wine he poured as Heard secretly filmed him being verbally aggressive.
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“Megapint?” he sputters, as if it were the most offensive thing he’s ever heard. As it happens, he coined the term himself during his earlier defamation case against the Sun, at the high court in London, where the newspaper was found not to have libelled Depp when describing the actor as a “wife beater”.
The 2022 trial was as much social-media circus as court case. Depp’s supporters attacked Heard online as a gold digger and manipulator. Depp was, of course, the wronged party whose career had been destroyed. Having come to their attention by suggesting Depp might not be whiter than white, I can attest to the scale of the mania at work here: Depp supporters aren’t fans; they’re fanatics.
Cooper references the online campaign of hate against Heard. Yet while we are introduced to figures such as “Darth News”, a man in a Deadpool mask who never doubts Depp’s innocence, I’m not sure the director conveys just how much abuse was directed at Heard. Instead, episode one is a simple recap culled from courtroom footage. With two episodes left, on Monday and Tuesday, the documentary may yet expand into something more thoughtful. But for anyone who followed the case, Depp vs Heard so far has little new to impart.
