| 100 |
Chicago Tribune
Kaufman's startling Quills gives us an anatomy of fear, images both silken swift and molten hot, scenes that disrupt and inflame the imagination.
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| 90 |
Rolling Stone
A savage comedy of sexual extremes; the barbed laughs draw blood.
|
| 90 |
Washington Post
Profane, sacrilegious, pornographic, sadistic and Sade-istic, titillating and the most honorable movie of the year.
|
| 90 |
Salon.com
It's an unapologetic dazzler, which is why it's never overwhelmed by its themes.
|
| 88 |
USA Today
Uniformly robust acting puts still more feathers in the caps of Rush, Winslet and Caine.
|
| 88 |
Boston Globe
A witty yet fiery and, in the best sense, provocative play of ideas about freedom of expression.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Finds a tone that remains more entertaining than depressing, more absorbing than alarming.
|
| 88 |
Miami Herald
This playful, immensely entertaining movie knows that art is in the eye of the beholder.
|
| 80 |
LA Weekly
Remarkable energy and wit, and is probably the most purely enjoyable entry in Kaufman's suboeuvre of literary excursions.
|
| 80 |
Film.com
The dialogue is sparkingly witty, and Phoenix and Winslet are excellent in what are, after all, meant to be fairly one-dimensional roles.
|
| 80 |
Slate
What the film does have is coruscating anger, impish wit, and a breathtaking style.
|
| 80 |
The New York Times
Occasionally becomes pretentious and shrill -- sometimes Mr. Wright isn't aware that his material is so good that he doesn't need to comment on his characters.
|
| 80 |
Village Voice
Kaufman's earnestly overblown celebration of the Marquis de Sade.
|
| 80 |
Mr. Showbiz
A literate, dialogue-driven treat delivered by a cast that truly savors the script's wicked wit.
|
| 80 |
Chicago Reader
Ridiculous enough to be hilarious, but this didn't prevent me from thoroughly enjoying Philip Kaufman's silly romp.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
The things you can look forward to, however, are the humor, intellectual musing, emotional tumult, superb acting and challenging adult questions.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Rush is amazing throughout this absorbing, provocative film.
|
| 70 |
Washington Post
Rush is too sinfully good for the drama he's in.
|
| 70 |
Variety
Lacks an edge of danger or excitement that might have brought the subject alive in more than a cerebral way.
|
| 70 |
Newsweek
Ultimately, Quills descends into overwrought melodrama. But at its bright and bawdy best, it bubbles with subversive wit.
|
| 70 |
Film.com
Quills -- like the Marquis himself--is a posey, pungent, ultra-theatrical yet weirdly seductive mess which wants to have its cake, eat it too and discuss the whole concept and context of its meal (constantly, contradictorily) while it does so.
|
| 67 |
Austin Chronicle
A stunningly impassioned and articulate study of a writer's life and the censorial demons that can strangle that voice.
|
| 67 |
Entertainment Weekly
Quills bleaches the danger -- and fascination -- out of De Sade, turning him into a kind of mad saint of ''Masterpiece Theatre'' porn.
|
| 63 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
It's a work that preaches to the choir, and the song has been more subtly sung in better movies.
|
| 60 |
Dallas Observer
Quills is bound to titillate some, but for most it's likely to summon little more than a few Oscars and appreciative yawns.
|
| 60 |
TV Guide
Censorship, madness, social rebellion and the power of art.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
The acting is passionate, but the film would be more effective if it presented a more thoroughgoing lesson in the raging horrors that swept through European culture during the era of the French Revolution.
|
| 50 |
Baltimore Sun
One gets the feeling Kaufman was so intent on putting fury and fanaticism on-screen, he forgot about having it serve any greater purpose. Which makes Quills the film equivalent of one of de Sade's novels: artifice, without art.
|
| 30 |
Time
This is soft-gore porn, obvious in its strategies, witless in the play of its ideas, absurdist only in its pretense to seriousness.
|
| 25 |
New York Post
Resembles a period version of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" - played dead straight.
|
| 20 |
Los Angeles Times
Soon becomes a sadistic experience in its own right. Experiencing this pretentious wallow -- overwritten, under-thought and overdone -- is a very sophisticated form of torture.
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