SnoopyStyle
The Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) is locked up in the Charenton Insane Asylum run by Abbé du Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix). Laundress Madeline LeClerc (Kate Winslet) falls for the lascivious Marquis de Sade and helps him smuggle out his writings. Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte wants him stopped and sends Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine) with his tortuous treatments. Royer-Collard marries the young Simone (Amelia Warner) who lived in a convent.Geoffrey Rush is absolutely brilliant as the Marquis de Sade. The acting in this is first rate. I wish Rush get more screen time as the lead character. He's nominated for the Oscar as lead actor but he's more as one of the cast. Royer-Collard's hypocrisy is interesting but the movie spends a little too much time on him. I would rather the movie stay with Geoffrey Rush from start to finish and more Kate Winslet.
Andy Steel
A pretty well made film with some excellent performances, particularly from Geoffrey Rush and Kate Winslet. It did, however, seem incomplete; there were a couple of threads that didn't seem to tie up. I was interested in the story of the doctor's wife and also the wife of the Marquis. Both of these characters came and went without any reference to them again; I found that a little odd. I have never read any of the works of the Marquis de Sade, but having seen this I'm tempted to take a look and see if it's really as depraved as they say. As for the film, definitely worth a look although I did find it a tad drawn out and a tad too long.SteelMonster's verdict: RECOMMENDEDMy score: 7.1/10You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.
SanFernandoCurt
If you look at the cast names, as I did when the credits rolled, you may think you're in for a wonderful time. You're not. There is something about Western society in the past half-century or so: Our self-appointed social visionaries can't relinquish the silly idea that sex and more sex will release us from our backward hangups, usher in a new era of equality and peace, and maybe do the ironing, too. Despite all evidence to the contrary since the '60s, this conviction is advanced with energy and enthusiasm bordering on obsessive/compulsive disorder. The rest of us can only watch in bored disenchantment and growing impatience.This movie really has nothing to say. It makes a few gestures about free will clashing with priggish authoritarianism. There's some gas-bagging about importance of ahhht and ahhhtists. Some women are stripped bare by a director who evidently feels he has something to say. ...And ...we watch in bored disenchantment and growing impatience. There's a scene about halfway in, set as theatrical production by asylum inmates under direction of the Marquis (Geoffrey Rush, in acting service above and beyond the call of duty). He's burdened with a thudding, anachronistic line about shocking his audience with... the truth or something. It would be fine burbled at some academia cocktail party; not so convincing a sentiment in 18th-century France. The scene is supposed to be deliriously funny and invigorating as the prudes have their nose rubbed in clumsily staged sex acts. It fails on both counts. This is the time to go out front for a cigarette, beer or mind-numbing narcotic, just to shake out the fake laughter banging in your head.Where's Peter Brook when we really need him? I give it three stars for great cinematography and art direction. Minus-two for storyline philosophy that should've been junked with all those old Hot Tuna albums.
Scarecrow-88
Geoffrey Rush stars as the notorious Marquis de Sade, languishing in an asylum, allowed some freedoms, though his appetites for causing a stir by way of his quill lands him in a lot of hot water. Kate Winslet, the laundress who moves his written work to the outside where it can be marketed underground to the people who love the Marquis' sordid tales of the violent and erotic. Joaquin Phoenix, the priest over Charenton mental institution, who treats the patients, including the Marquis, with humanity and kindness. Michael Caine, the medical scientist(more like certified torturer, whose methods include dunking the disturbed in water among other ways)who arrives at Charenton at an advisory capacity. Caine's doctor is ferocious and his way of curing the mentally ill is barbaric, a complete polar opposite to Phoenix who wants to keep his inmates free from vile experiments which do more harm than good.The movie amusingly asks us which one's worse, Caine's scientist or Rush's Marquis. Caine is commissioned by Emperor Napoleon to "cure" Marquis because death to such a quietly revered author might make him a martyr for the lower classes. The film shows how Caine's old man is married to a teenage virgin raised in a convent, and we see him force her into rough sex. Yet, his control over her is brief as she soon gains an advantage, his wanting to please her in ways sex can not used as a tool to get her way. Interesting development shows that Caine's wife is an avid reader of the Marquis..talk about irony.The depraved work thrown into the fire by an angered Napoleon is "Justine"..this is the work which repulsed him into action(a very funny scene shows Napoleon sitting upon his throne, his feet unable to touch the floor as if he were a child in a swing, legs flailing). When the Marquis pens a farce mocking Caine and his marriage to the young bride, set to a play designed to insult and ridicule for fun, he enacts a feud he will live to regret.The movie shows people appalled at the way the Marquis writes about his characters' "inadequacies" and devious pursuits and yet they remain curious and find his work even humorous, fighting off giggles.When the Marquis escapes from his cell, thanks to Winslet unlocking his door against her better judgment, Phoenix is forced into a predicament he'll never be able to recover from, his decency towards the patient rewarded with disregard. Basically, upon Caine's arrival, everything the priest had built falls to ruin. By the end, the lives of many will be shattered, death and anguish to all through Caine's actions. Though, despite all his underhanded tactics, no matter what he was able to accomplish in scoring a revenge against the Marquis for his wife's leaving him for a talented home decorator, influenced by the depravity and vice written by his hand, the author's work lives on no matter what the conniving scientist does to him.The movie shows that no matter what punishments are dealt him(remove his means to write, such as quills and paper, cloth and wine, etc), the Marquis finds ways to get his work to the outside world. Eventually, the evil scientist does get rid of the man, and he even sets up a printing factory using the inmates to distribute the Marquis work at the author's wife's permission, but halting the power of the one he so despises will never be easy as long as Phoenix's defrocked priest keeps his memory afresh. QUILLS includes an erotic scene where Phoenix fantasizes making love to a ravishing Winslet and Rush devours his scenes like a mutt with rabies. It's easy to see that Rush summoned the spirit of Marquis de Sade while portraying the role, I thought he wholly brought him to life in QUILLS. The asylum itself can be presented as both a refuge for the inmates and a bleak place once Caine's presence constrains the freedom they once had, his power attributing to the very Emperor who gave him absolute authority to see that order is kept."My most glorious prose..filtered through the minds of the insane."
