Quills Review
By Joe Lozito
Sade Off
"Quills," Philip Kaufman's take on the last days of the Marquis de Sade in the Charenton Asylum in Paris, should have been a dissection of the relationship between repression and perversion and the odd attraction that human beings have towards all things taboo. Occasionally, the film hits the mark, but more often than not it seems to be going through the motions. It shows us what these characters do without adequately explaining why. And that would have been a great subject for the film to tackle. Yes, the buxom, virginal chambermaid (Kate Winslet) is attracted to the celibate priest (Joaquin Phoenix) and anticipates the Marquis' every word with baited breath, but why? And yes the evil Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine) is bent on destroying the Marquis and all he stands for, but why is he a cardboard, nearly moustache-twirling caricature?
That penchant for taking the easy way out with its characters is what undoes "Quills". The characters are excuses for the actions, rather than the actions defining the characters. This is not the fault of the performers, who are almost universally good. Only Mr. Phoenix gives a performance which is patently light. Again, like in "Gladiator," he acts through his sunken eyes and protruding chin. Unfortunately in this case the script, by Doug Wright (from his play), does not support him. Instead the screenplay rolls out a litany of events without an underlying thread or theme to explain them. Too often the Marquis is offered up as a martyr for censorship, and hopefully that's not what Mr. Wright was attempting. That topic has been done to death, and in much better ways. Perhaps on the stage the events took on a grander scale, but under the lens they play with the weight of a soap opera.
Geoffrey Rush gives a wonderfully flamboyant portrayal of the Marquis himself, but very little is divulged about what makes the man tick. Ms. Winslet is bouncy and playful as the fantasy of the virginal chambermaid come to life. And Mr. Caine turns up his sinister campy side to moderately successful effect - though at times he seems more like the Emperor from the "Star Wars" saga.
Mr. Kaufman, who has shined with "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Henry and June," creates the proper atmosphere without verging too often into Monty Python territory. However, in the end it would seem for all the Marquis de Sade's obscenities (and only the most palatable are shown here) he wasn't such a bad guy. He just wanted to write pornography, drink wine, and molest the occasional housekeeper. In an age of romance novels and Internet porn, does that really seem like such a crime? No, but the fact that "Quills" didn't realize its potential truly is.
