Review – Quills

Rare indeed is the movie that leaves me glad I braved the art house crowds to see it. But this one pulls it off. Geoffrey Rush does an outstanding job as the perverse and talentless yet oddly compelling Marquis de Sade, imprisoned in the Clarenton asylum and forced to smuggle his writing to press via a chambermaid (Kate Winslet). When a new, authoritarian “alienist” arrives on the scene, the Marquis finds himself bereft of writing instruments. And herein lies the true genius of the production; the plot actually proceeds from that point rather than merely wallowing in bathetic bemoaning of the evils of censorship. Our “hero” seeks alternative ways of sharing his tales, with results that ultimately prove disastrous. Who is to blame? The forces of censorship? The author? The criminals themselves? Thankfully, the film-makers provide no clear-cut answer. My only regret about this experience is that I didn’t manage to catch this film in a theater screening a decent – or at the very least non-barbecued – print, and perhaps with better speakers and fewer art-posing rubes in the seats around me. Worth seeing