Quills

Quills is a heaving bosom of a movie, as sensuous, breathless and salaciously giddy as the nubile French virgins who parade through the dank halls of Charenton, the Gothic mental asylum wherein dwells the odious Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush). De Sade, of course, was the eighteenth-century lech whose sensationalist novels augured the latter-day trash paperback phenomenon. And though Quills, directed by Philip Kaufman, purports to address the equally contemporary issue of censorship, it's the film's timeless preoccupation with all things libidinous that will entrance moviegoers.

"A kiss for every page," the Marquis purrs to Madeleine (Kate Winslet), the comely young laundress who couriers his pornography to a publisher. Madeleine, like the Parisian public, laps up de Sade's prose-a fixation that becomes problematic when Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine) descends upon Charenton. Before you can say, "Oh, those French," the place is aswim with a sexual frenzy that even contaminates the forthright young priest (Joaquin Phoenix) whose eyes feast a tad too frequently on Madeleine's ripe decolletage.

Steeped in vibrant crimsons and blues, Quills is exquisitely mounted and lovingly lensed; if Merchant and Ivory were pornogaphers, they might have produced a movie like this. The film, adapted by Doug Wright from his 1995 stage play, boasts a gallery of fine portrayals: Winslet has never looked more luscious, and the often-overrated Caine preens with a half-parodic hauteur. Rush has always been an insistently one-dimensional presence-best known for his depthless, nattering performance as tortured pianist David Helfgott in Shine-but that suits the obstinate Marquis as he defies Royer-Collard's censorship, inscribing his words with blood once the doctor deprives him of ink. And the supporting cast pants and sweats zealously-it's as though they were getting paid by the moan.

Quills isn't the weighty period piece its ad campaign suggests-rather, it's a sumptuous hoot, wicked and witty, teeming with delectable dialogue and a genuine erotic pulse. Like last year's Mansfield Park, the film is a guilty pleasure dolled up as high art, swooning smut as Oscar bait. Those French, indeed.