This is a very fine film, for a number of reasons. It succeeds very well thank you as a costume drama with an involving story, great visuals, skillfully paced direction and several outstanding performances (too many to pick out).
It also treats de Sade's work very fairly, although the more (frankly repulsive) passages are mercifully skipped. Pornography as a political/satirical tool isn't often considered outside of Channel 4, and this film does it interestingly and accessibly. It also carries across the sense that wickedness, sadism and perversion already exist, and de Sade simply chose to expose them. Love the ending, which is perfectly in keeping with the philosophy of "Justine".
Without having known the man personally, there isn't a single person who can tell if Geoffrey Rush's performance is mad enough, bad enough, cynical enough, perverse enough. It'll do, though.
It also treats de Sade's work very fairly, although the more (frankly repulsive) passages are mercifully skipped. Pornography as a political/satirical tool isn't often considered outside of Channel 4, and this film does it interestingly and accessibly. It also carries across the sense that wickedness, sadism and perversion already exist, and de Sade simply chose to expose them. Love the ending, which is perfectly in keeping with the philosophy of "Justine".
Without having known the man personally, there isn't a single person who can tell if Geoffrey Rush's performance is mad enough, bad enough, cynical enough, perverse enough. It'll do, though.