Video Capsule Review

Quills

Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet (2000, Fox, 124 mins., R, also on DVD)

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Credits

Release Date: Dec 15, 2000; Rated: R; Genres: Drama, Historical; With: Michael Caine, Joaquin Phoenix, Geoffrey Rush and Kate Winslet; Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures

By Arion Berger

Since Philip Kaufman (Henry & June) fancies himself an auteur of complicated sexuality, he's found a compatible subject in the Marquis de Sade: Both believe their silly, feverish, unpleasant erotic scenarios to be revolutionary. Rush and Winslet are in fine literary/sensual collusion as the leering nobleman and the freethinking laundress who smuggles his smut to the needy masses, but Joaquin Phoenix gives a shudderingly bad performance as a titillated priest. Quills is typical Kaufman: lurid and two-dimensional, a heavy brocade tapestry of a film. C

Posted May 11, 2001

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