Hunter S. Thompson wrote the book The Rum Diary back in 1961 when he knew very well what the demon rum was all about. Even the screenplay writer/director, Bruce Robinson was familiar with boozing being had sworn off alcohol over six years before but went back to it just to finish the screenplay that writer's block was keeping him from completing. That's dedication! ohnny Depp (Ed Wood, Donnie Brasco) is freelance journalist Paul Kemp, himself one of those lost souls he writes about. Determined to self destruct it's obvious this rag tag bunch of humanities leftovers just seem to drink their lives away. But Kemp falls for a woman that brightens up his days. Chenault is played by Amber Heard (Pineapple Express, Zombieland) and is Kemp's obsession as he drinks his days away in Puerto Rico.hat makes a movie about drunks and their ability to consume volumes of fermented sugarcane (rum) interesting? It's about the lost souls that seem to have given up on life and what they leave behind, like lovers, families, and life they're afraid to face. And Thompson's writing makes it all seem to work perhaps because The Rum Diary is about his life...