Movie Review: “Quills” Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Kate Winslet and Geoffrey Rush

Quills goes against common norms in contemporary films of the same caliber by illustrating acts considered highly taboo within our society. Still, it’s not about the shock factor, but the story that lay within. It forces the viewer to peer deeper into everyday life and understand the satire that “Quills” is making of it by displaying the issues society doesn’t wish to address about those they consider beneath them.

The beauty of Cherton Insane Asylum, where the story takes place, lies not in its picturesque French countryside setting, but in its comparable representation of the people frowned upon by society; shown in the patients and staff you meet there. You have Beauchamp, who represents all prisoners. Fischard, who enjoys to setting fires, is alike to anyone who has obsessive behaviors, or has ever been obsessed. Another inmate constantly dresses in woman’s clothes; he stands for those who seek to be the opposite sex and thus reject themselves subconsciously.

Madelyn represents those who chose to associate with people who are considered socially unacceptable. Madelyn’s mother, a blind woman, stands for the disabled generally ignored by the world. This perception even branches to include: The Abbey, who stands for the Church; Dr. Coyard, who stands for corrupt politicians and government; and the Marquis, who stands for the individual.

The Marquis represents the individual throughout the film because of his choice not to follow what others in authority have told him to do-namely the Church and the Government. For example, when the Abbey first appeals to him to stop his lecherous writings he agrees, but later pens a farce, “The Crimes of Love”, for performance at the Cherton Theatre, highlighting Dr. Coyard’s personal sex life, or lack thereof. This merely earns him the loss of his quills, ink, and parchment. Thus, stripping him of his ability to write, or his level of education that many failed to posses during those times.

Reaffirmed by the Abbey’s comment to the Marquis as he leaves his chambers, “You’re no longer allowed to write your own name.” Ever persistent, he proceeds to write his next story on his bed sheets, until it’s finally discovered. Then furniture and personal belongings are removed, thus symbolically taking his comfort and home. Then, he proceeds to write in his following tale in his own blood, on his own clothes, which when found out, also leads to the sizing of his clothing-or his dignity-and his ring, the symbol of his status above commoners that stay in the asylum with him.

In the end, he’s left as nothing but a shell of himself, and the very driving essence that compels him to continue dispersing his stories to those outside the Asylum. And further reiterating that it’s the person, not the possessions that makes us who we are.

He manages to tell another still tale, passed word of mouth by the inmates of the asylum through their cells to Madelyn in a room down the hall. This leads to her death by Beauchamp, who following the details of the story being shared, cuts her up with a pair of sheers. Grief stricken from her death, and broken from his confinement and torture, his final act is to write just one more story upon his dudgeon’s stonewalls in his own feces before taking his own life by choking on the Abbey’s cross that he was meant to kiss. A befitting ending seeing that the Church is the symbol of the “community”. The very community that began the Revolution, and placed him in Cherton to begin with.

Madelyn is the impressionable youth in the story, everyone is convinced they can control her, or that they know what’s best for her. Madelyn on the other hand, has a mind of her own. She has her own hopes and dreams, embodied by the mysterious horseback rider that picks up the manuscripts that the Marquis’ pens. Shown when she asks him his name, he suggests that he might tell her one day if she rides off with him.

Her convictions and will to continue help the Marquis in his quest to send his writings out into the world result in her punishment, and in the end, death. The Abbey, asking her once how she could enjoy such stories, she replied that she put herself in each tale. “If I wasn’t such a bad woman on the page, I reckon I couldn’t be such a good one in life.” Thus asserting that just because one choices to be with those considered to be depraved doesn’t mean one must turn out that way themselves.

The Abbey, a mirror opposite of the Marquis, stands for the Church and Christianity through most of the film. Yet, there is conflict in his position because he doesn’t wish to be the authoritarian that Dr. Coyard demands of him or break the vows that made him a priest. This is easily found in the scene where The Abbey forces the Marquis to remove his clothing so he can’t write his stories on the fabric. The Marquis asks him how it feels to have power over another man, if he likes it. Yet, when the Abbey asks the Marquis to take off his pants as well, he can’t bear too look, because his position of authority has demanded he disgrace someone he once felt a kinship with.

Even after they cut out the Marquis’ tongue, and he has wrote on the wall of his cell in his own feces, the Abbey still makes it a point to recite a prayer in the Marquis’ name to save him-or in some effort to save himself from the course actions he’s take against him throughout the movie. Still, when the Abbey requests the Marquis to kiss the cross, the Marquis reply is to swallow and choke on it. The Abbey, and all the patients with in the Asylum scream; for now The Abbey knows he’s damned. Driven in to madness, The Abbey, now a patient of once his own institution pleads with a newly arrived Abbey for a quill.

As they leave, the Head Laundress, Madelyn’s mother, comes to change the sheets; handing him exactly what he desires. “Use it well,” she says, “You owe her that much.” For all his posturing and refusals, The Abbey has become exactly like the Marquis, doomed for all his life to write, or else let the hell he’s witnessed consume him from within. In effect, “the Church” becomes the “individual”, but only through hardship and the cohersion of the government.

Dr. Coyard is the symbol of the corrupt politician/government because of his manor of action during the film. He takes a very uncompassionate view towards everything that The Abbey, The Marquis, and Madelyn says. In fact, when Dr. Coyard demands that the Marquis be punished for creating a ruckus in the dinning hall the Marquis replies: “First rule of politics, the man who orders the execution never drops the blade.”

It’s also seen in his answer to the problems plaguing Cherton-they’re very cold and disembodied like he’s not thinking about another person’s welfare, only his own. The best supporting evidence is actually shown in the end when the newly sent replacement Abbey is aghast to find out that the Doctor is printing the Marquis’ writings. He informs him it’s to provide the funds to bring good care to Cherton and it’s wards-not that any of the money would turn up in his pocket.

Our pleasant tale ends with the Marquis’ stories being printed in countless languages, and The Abbey as part of the stories abounding irony, imprisoned in the same cell the Marquis once occupied. The Marquis’ voice narrates in the background as The Abbey writes feverently in the final moments of the movie. He says he’ll live on in The Abbey, that “In order to know virtue, we must aquaint ourselves with vice.” The Marquis is finally heard beconing us, “Come now, turn the page.”