A stonemason steadfastly pursues a cousin he loves. However their love is troubled as he is married to a woman who tricked him into marriage and she is married to a man she does not love.
Director:
Michael Winterbottom
Stars:
Christopher Eccleston,
Kate Winslet,
Liam Cunningham
The lives of two lovelorn spouses from separate marriages, a registered sex offender, and a disgraced ex-police officer intersect as they struggle to resist their vulnerabilities and temptations in suburban Massachusetts.
Director:
Todd Field
Stars:
Kate Winslet,
Jennifer Connelly,
Patrick Wilson
True story of the lifelong romance between novelist Iris Murdoch and her husband John Bayley, from their student days through her battle with Alzheimer's disease.
Ruth's been brainwashed by a guru in Delhi, India. Her parents in Sydney hire a specialist in reversing this. Ruth is tricked to return to Australia and is isolated in an outback cabin with the specialist. It gets messy.
Director:
Jane Campion
Stars:
Kate Winslet,
Harvey Keitel,
Julie Hamilton
Post-WWII Germany: Nearly a decade after his affair with an older woman came to a mysterious end, law student Michael Berg re-encounters his former lover as she defends herself in a war-crime trial.
Hideous Kinky is the story of two sisters (seven and five years old) traveling with their hippie mother from London to Morocco. They encounter many adventures, new experiences, and ... See full summary »
In 1931 Paris, Anais Nin meets Henry Miller and his wife June. Intrigued by them both, she begins expanding her sexual horizons with her husband Hugo as well as with Henry and others. June ... See full summary »
A Brooklyn-set romantic drama about a bachelor torn between the family friend his parents wish he would marry and his beautiful but volatile new neighbor.
The infamous writer, the Marquis de Sade of eighteenth century France, is imprisoned at Charenton Insane Asylum for unmentionable activities. He manages to befriend the young Abbé de Coulmier, who runs the asylum, along with a beautiful laundress named Madeline. Things go terribly wrong when the Abbe finds out that the Marquis' books are being secretly published. Emperor Napoleon contemplates sending Dr. Royer-Collard to oversee the asylum, a man famed for his torturous punishments. It could mean the end of Charenton and possibly the Marquis.Written by
Emily H and Janette W
The tune that the Marquis de Sade keeps humming throughout this movie is the French children's song "Au Clair de la Lune" by Jean-Baptiste Lully, the second line of which becomes increasingly relevant, roughly translated, it is "lend me your quill so I can write a word." See more »
Goofs
When Madeleine is putting on her dress after getting her wounds clean, she slips her arm into the sleeve twice. See more »
Quotes
Coulmier:
Your terrible secret revealed, you're a man after all.
See more »
Quills is a delightfully unsettling account of the demise of the Marquis de Sade and those he brings down with him. The film presents viewers with all the evidence they need to identify the fallacies of society's separation of "good" from "evil" and "moralists" from "sinners." It subtly asserts that the values traditionally used to pass judgment are compromised by convention and religion, and that there is moral danger in accepting these values without question.
During the film, one form of sin is only replaced by another, which defeats its resistors and beguiles the rest by hiding behind a pretentious shroud of religion and convention.
Viewers are horrified to discover that they can actually identify with the marquis, whose name inspired the word "sadist" to describe those who derive sexual pleasure from violence. Most viewers' senses of morality are sullied by the realization that they are hanging on every twist of the plot, desperate to know what will next beset these wretched characters.
Based on historical fact, Quills catches up with the Marquis (Geoffrey Rush) during the twilight of his life, when he has already been sentenced to life imprisonment in the Charenton Asylum. No longer able to pursue the perverse sexual escapades that had landed him in the madhouse after decades of unspeakable offenses, he now purges his demons by writing. At the urging of the saintly, ever-tolerant and even-tempered Abbe Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), the marquis describes his imagination's disturbing scenes on paper.
Trouble arises when one of his books, smuggled to a publisher by a sympathetic admirer - innocent laundry maid Madeleine (Kate Winslet) - catch the disapproving eye of Emperor Napoleon.
There is no escape from sin when the man sent to purify the Charenton, Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine), only seeks to replace it with intolerance and unimaginable cruelty.
True to the spirit of the film, the sets are imbued befittingly with gloom and grime, and the inhabitants of the Charenton are realistically ragged.
Rush and Winslet's performances as the marquis and Madeleine are stunning. The film's delicious impropriety is heightened by their chemistry, which is so potent as to be communicable to viewers.
The super-intelligent plot is unexpectedly circular, leaving viewers feeling as though they may well be next in line for the madness bred at the Charenton. Their fears are seemingly verified by he change they know the film has already inspired in them.
Far from resolutive, the only solace the ending holds for viewers is a sense of, "Aha, now I know," and a new way to evaluate the good in evil in themselves and others.
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Quills is a delightfully unsettling account of the demise of the Marquis de Sade and those he brings down with him. The film presents viewers with all the evidence they need to identify the fallacies of society's separation of "good" from "evil" and "moralists" from "sinners." It subtly asserts that the values traditionally used to pass judgment are compromised by convention and religion, and that there is moral danger in accepting these values without question.
During the film, one form of sin is only replaced by another, which defeats its resistors and beguiles the rest by hiding behind a pretentious shroud of religion and convention.
Viewers are horrified to discover that they can actually identify with the marquis, whose name inspired the word "sadist" to describe those who derive sexual pleasure from violence. Most viewers' senses of morality are sullied by the realization that they are hanging on every twist of the plot, desperate to know what will next beset these wretched characters.
Based on historical fact, Quills catches up with the Marquis (Geoffrey Rush) during the twilight of his life, when he has already been sentenced to life imprisonment in the Charenton Asylum. No longer able to pursue the perverse sexual escapades that had landed him in the madhouse after decades of unspeakable offenses, he now purges his demons by writing. At the urging of the saintly, ever-tolerant and even-tempered Abbe Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), the marquis describes his imagination's disturbing scenes on paper.
Trouble arises when one of his books, smuggled to a publisher by a sympathetic admirer - innocent laundry maid Madeleine (Kate Winslet) - catch the disapproving eye of Emperor Napoleon.
There is no escape from sin when the man sent to purify the Charenton, Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine), only seeks to replace it with intolerance and unimaginable cruelty.
True to the spirit of the film, the sets are imbued befittingly with gloom and grime, and the inhabitants of the Charenton are realistically ragged.
Rush and Winslet's performances as the marquis and Madeleine are stunning. The film's delicious impropriety is heightened by their chemistry, which is so potent as to be communicable to viewers.
The super-intelligent plot is unexpectedly circular, leaving viewers feeling as though they may well be next in line for the madness bred at the Charenton. Their fears are seemingly verified by he change they know the film has already inspired in them.
Far from resolutive, the only solace the ending holds for viewers is a sense of, "Aha, now I know," and a new way to evaluate the good in evil in themselves and others.