I wonder why Johnny Depp wasn’t in this movie. After all, he was in Sleepy Hollow and From Hell, and I would assume that he’d want more parts in which he can practice speaking with his phony British accent. If you also expect to see gratuitous sex scenes, kinky S&M, and the more lurid sexual escapades of the Marquis de Sade, prepare for disappointment.
While we’re on the topic of accents, have you ever wondered why characters in any movie set in the past speak English, and with British accents? Just look at the French characters in Les Miserables, the Russians in Enemy at the Gates, and the Roman in Gladiator (with the exception of Russell Crowe, who shows his swarthy true self in the Oscar-stealing – and I mean stolen from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon – role). The French characters in Quills are no exception.
Quills, starring Geoffrey Rush as the Marquis de Sade, is set in an asylum for the insane in a Napoleonic France that gobbles up the perverse tales the Marquis writes in his cell. The Abbe du Coulmier, played brilliantly by Joaquin Phoenix, is charged with silencing the Marquis, but butts heads with Dr. Royer-Collard played by Michael Caine. Kate Winslet is the mandatory female love interest, object of desire, and predictably, ill-fated to-be-lover. The Marquis infuriates the doctor, the Abbe and the Marquis fall in love with the girl, some people die, someone goes mad, the end.
What did I like about this movie? As much as I can’t stand Joaquin Phoenix, I did like him in his role as the Abbe; he was subdued, yet he carried himself well as the tortured but virtuous priest. Rush, as always, is impressive, and balances depravity and genius as the infamous Marquis de Sade in a departure from more recent roles as tough cop/ ruthless spy in Les Miserables and Elizabeth.
What didn’t I like about this movie? Let’s be honest: I was expecting a movie with lots of sex, lots of S&M, and a lot more of Kate Winslet’s fleshy ivory mounds (though female and gay viewers – all viewers, actually - are treated to a glimpse or two of Geoffrey Rush’s sausage and rump). Now I don’t really know much about the Marquis de Sade, but I did expect to see flashbacks of his sexual misadventures, and was rather disappointed to see fleeting allusions to them. Sure, the title Quills refers to the trials and tribulations the Marquis faced when writing his last stories, but come on, let’s see more of the perversities that made the Marquis notorious. Then again, this movie wasn’t titled Ow! Ow! Ow!: the Pornographic Account of the Sick Perverted Bastard, the Marquis de Sade. So unless you want to see life in a 19th century French mental asylum, or you’re a huge fan of Geoffrey Rush and would like to see his ass and more, avoid watching Quills on an un-rainy day.
-reviewed by the film cricket, Feb. 21, 2002
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