Quills 2000

Ebert & Roeper: Read more

Susan Stark, Detroit News: Read more

Jane Sumner, Dallas Morning News: The Gothic tale grabs the eyeballs and keeps them transfixed to the screen. Read more

Elvis Mitchell, New York Times: The elegance of Mr. Kaufman's direction and his handling of the cast make for the kind of euphoric stylishness that has been missing from moviegoing for some time. Read more

David Edelstein, Slate: The dramatic case is too settled, the narrative trajectory too smug, the view of the transgressive artist too naive. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: As biography and black comedy, Quills comes up short. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Shrill, pretentious, sophomoric and often just plain dumb. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Experiencing this pretentious wallow -- overwritten, under-thought and overdone -- is a very sophisticated form of torture. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: It breathes, it twirls, it prances right up into your face. It swirls over the top sometimes, but there never is any doubt you're watching a movie about something. Read more

Paul Tatara, CNN.com: Pretentious, long-winded. Read more

Steven Rosen, Denver Post: A rare Hollywood movie that is about the nature of eroticism without being afraid of its own power to arouse. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: It's hard not to cheer him on, even as the film itself erases De Sade more than it reveals him. Read more

Globe and Mail: Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Quills [is watchable], if you've got the stomach. It's just a little bit mad. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: Quills, about the marquis de Sade, is a voluptuous impasto. Everything in it -- the colors, the locations, the people -- seems swirled with a mixture of decadence and grace. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Arguably the most provocative and best historical melodrama of 2000. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Kaufman ... finds a tone that remains more entertaining than depressing, more absorbing than alarming. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: It's an unapologetic dazzler, which is why it's never overwhelmed by its themes. Read more

Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle: Rush often makes the film soar with a sense of enlightened madness. Read more

Derek Adams, Time Out: It pokes at sexual taboos - it's pretty subversive, considering - but sexuality and creativity are indelibly linked, and its true subject is expression, repression and catharsis. Read more

Jeremy Gerard, Variety: "Quills" is sensational in every sense of the word. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: I'm inclined to agree with my colleague Michael Musto, who suggested that the reason various characters have their tongues ripped out is to prevent the actors from chewing away the scenery. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Geoffrey Rush plays this rascal to the magnificent hilt. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: It argues its case fairly, acknowledging the implicit dangers in its position, and dramatizing the price that inevitably will be paid for its cherished goal of untrammeled personal expression. Read more