Geoffrey Rush plays the slightly insane Marquis de Sade, a sexually explicit writer during 18th century France. Banished to an asylum, he still writes his naughty stories, smuggling them out through Kate Winslet, the laundress. While the powers that be want him to stay silent, Kate and his other readers are riveted. Meanwhile, the priest Joaquin Phoenix tries to hide his growing feelings for Kate, and Doctor Michael Caine is sent to evaluate the patient.If you like extremely naughty period pieces, you'll probably like Quills. It feels a bit over the top, but that tone is probably on purpose to fit in with the setting. A low-key film in a lunatic asylum just wouldn't work! Geoffrey does a very good job, but since he's not exactly likable, it's hard to root for him. If he had a compulsion to write dirty stories, why did he have to smuggle them out for public consumption? If his were the only eyes to read his work, it would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. It also would have made for a much shorter movie.I didn't end up liking this film, because besides Michael Caine, I'm not a big fan of the cast. And, while I'm not exactly a prudish film-goer, I like the vulgarity to serve a purpose in the film, rather than just to titillate the audience. This film has excessive sexual content, both consensual and nonconsensual, and I felt like I needed a good cleansing afterwards.Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to sex scenes, nudity, violence, and strong sexual content, I wouldn't let my kids watch it. Also, there may or may not be rape scenes.

the story of Marquis de Sade is known. as ball of myths and suppositions and rumors. as result of lecture, in the late childhood, of his writings. the film do not propose a portrait of him. but the web who defines and support his eccentricity. Quills remains always a surprise for the viewer. for its status of mechanism of a clock. because the performances of each actor becomes part of fascinating game of a delicate work of clock. each scene becomes key for discover the truth behind appearances. the idealism against the right public image. the love and the manipulation. the fear and its use for build the cage. the mistakes. the duel between Marquis and Royer-Collard represents the axis of a story about values and risks to assume the words. and, as each great film, Quills has the precious gift to say a story of today. as a parable, maybe. as demonstration, surely. this is the detail who does it not a good film but almost an experience.

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.

Luckily for the Marquis, at first anyway, is that there is something of an understanding priest in the Abbe du Coulmier, another wonderful performance from Joaquin Phoenix. An intensely religious man, Coulmier believes that the Marquis should be allowed to write, if only to purge himself of the sadism with which his head is filled and which would later be named after him.Kate Winslet plays Madeleine, a laundry maid who smuggles the Marquis' writing out of the asylum so that it can be published, for which many people are not happy, but many others are. The Marquis dips into the extensive world of the forbidden sexual taboos of the 18th and 19th centuries, writing extensively about them without a care in the world for propriety. One may wonder to what extent the Marquis' writings were such a hit because they were forbidden, or because of their lewd content, which may euphemistically be described as guilty pleasures for the masses. Indeed, Larry Flynt was not working, so graphic pornography was something of a rarity.There is a curious relationship between the Marquis and a physician named Royer-Collard, played by Michael Caine, who is assigned to law down the law with the Marquis and prevent him from writing anymore. The glee with which the Marquis mocks and taunts him are some of the best parts of this outstanding film. There is a great parallel between the two characters, as well. Royer-Collard pretends to be a moral role model, at the same time taking a wife who is young enough to be his daughter, possibly even his granddaughter, and treats the Marquis with exactly the same sadistic (if I can again use the term for the behavior for which the Marquis would later be named) behavior that he condemns that Marquis for writing about. Both men engage in many of the same practices, it's just that the Marquis makes no attempt and has no interest in hiding his interests in the pleasures of the flesh.