from all accounts i've read, the marquis de sade was a small, fat, nervous sweaty man who was known for a few deviant acts like those in his writing that proved more the exception of his life than the rule. this movie idealizes him into a dashing, wild figure, played perfectly by rush, an embodiment of liberal spirit rebelling against seemingly omnipotent and omnipresent repressive religious power. sometimes, as with this movie, plumbing the facts for the essence, and revising the story into a fiction like this play is the best thing an artist can do. the movie is a complete success, in acting, with rush, the beautiful and moving winslet, and the maturing phoenix. the dialogue is wonderfully sharp without being vulgar or lost in entendre, and the plot -in that it is a war fought with words, acts of love, torture, embargo, and various other arts- movies along extremely well. perhaps appropriately, the story is always gripping, but moves almost imperceptibly toward an emotional climax which leaves one stunned and wanting more. the marquis de sade will probably never be more than a cult figure in literature, and at that only among the more melancholy souls who still read in this world, but this play elevates him into something far greater than perhaps even he was for all his skills really able to express, and justifiably so. while as the abbot says, he was not the antichrist, but only a lewd man, he was a more than necessary evil; in a way his life was beautiful, and this movie more than gives the devil his due.