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>> The Sade biopic Quills is a lusty bodice-ripper

by JOANNE LATIMER

Quills isn't lewd. It isn't carnal and it isn't depraved. Pity, that, considering a biopic on the Marquis de Sade has a certain standard to maintain. Lurid expectations are quickly dashed when Quills reveals its true agenda. It's a tease--a smart, measured, gorgeous tease of a film about a horn dog with a talent for narrative bloodlust. By not resorting to Sade's own style, Quills does the censored writer an honour, even if the plot is a bit short on sodomy.

This bodice-ripper is set in the drab confines of Charenton Asylum, when Sade (Geoffrey Rush) was slung for his many indiscretions. There, a rather gentile-looking chambermaid, Madeleine (Kate Winslet), smuggles The Marquis' manuscripts to a publisher. She is in awe of Sade's talent, but she's in love with someone else--the kind-hearted priest (Joaquin Phoenix) who is teaching her to write. All wanton emotions are safely repressed, however, and Charenton is the very model of a humane asylum.

Outraged by the popularity of one of Sade's naughty books, the Emperor Napoleon, sends Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine) to silence the author. The good doctor is himself a sicko, less moral than Sade, we see, but Collard's the one with the keys to the torture chamber.

Madness reigns when Sade is forbidden to write. His tantrums are suicidal, Madeleine is undone and the priest forgets himself. Director Philip Kaufman (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Right Stuff) is at his best at this point, loosening his own aesthetic rule that gives the film its tones of gray and its actors blue lips. Kaufman even lets things get lusty, as we know he can. Most of the lust occurs off-camera, just out of frame or behind doors, which only adds to the sexual tension. The Marquis would disagree, no doubt.

Kaufman keeps the moral ambiguities flying, about censorship, lasciviousness and victims. Sade is presented as a genius worthy of the printed page, yet his texts have fatal consequences. Equally confounding is Dr. Royer-Collard's (fictional) 15-year-old bride, the virginal Simone, who turns misery into triumph in the manner of a Sade character. To Kaufman's credit, all his characters are complicit in their triumphs and declines. The actors clearly love this complexity, and their commitment to every line of dialogue and every gesture makes Quills a gripping film to watch.

A final note: Why the press kit makes 10 pages of apologies about fudging the historical facts is a mystery. Even the writer, playwright Doug Wright, lays down a three-page "forgive me" treatise. Forget it. Fudge away. Life rarely occurs in three tight acts, with subplots galore. The film needs young Simone and the imaginary agony of the priest.

Quills opens Friday, Dec. 15