More concerned with Sade's ideas than with his actions. The movie achieves as great an impact by keeping these thoughts hidden as... [Quills] did by showing them.
Comment
08/14/02
Sade (2002)
67
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:30
Fresh:20
Rotten:10
Average Rating:6.3/10
Theatrical Release:Apr 26, 2002 Limited
Synopsis: Benoit Jacquot's SADE is a provocative historical drama set during the French Revolution starring Daniel Auteuil as the notorious Marquis de Sade. The film also stars the striking young actress... [More]
Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Marianne Denicourt, Jeanne Balibar, Gregoire Colin
Director: Benoit Jacquot
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Reviews for Sade
The movie fails to portray its literarily talented and notorious subject as anything much more than a dirty old man.
08/08/02
In Auteil's less dramatic but equally incisive performance, he's a charismatic charmer likely to seduce and conquer.
10/11/02
This time out, [Sade] is an unsettlingly familiar figure -- in turns loyal and deceitful, responsible and reckless, idealistically selfless and coldly self-interested.
12/19/02
The reason to see “Sade” lay with the chemistry and complex relationship between the marquis (Auteil) and Emilie (Le Besco).
08/21/02
Featuring a dangerously seductive performance from the great Daniel Auteuil, "Sade" covers the same period as Kaufmann's "Quills" with more unsettlingly realistic results.
08/18/02
A fiercely clever and subtle film, capturing the precarious balance between the extravagant confidence of the exiled aristocracy and the cruel earnestness of the victorious revolutionaries.
12/23/02
If you're looking for a smart, nuanced look at de Sade and what might have happened at Picpus, Sade is your film.
08/09/02
Top CriticRarely has the horror of the Terror been so graphically and effectively evoked.
04/25/02
Sade achieves the near-impossible: It turns the Marquis de Sade into a dullard.
05/03/02
Top CriticIt's a decent glimpse into a time period, and an outcast, that is no longer accessible, but it doesn't necessarily shed more light on its subject than the popular predecessor.
05/08/02
Despite Auteuil's performance, it's a rather listless amble down the middle of the road, where the thematic ironies are too obvious and the sexual politics too smug.
03/22/02
Top CriticToo bland and fustily tasteful to be truly prurient.
04/23/02
Top CriticIn its quiet, literate way, the film is almost as subversive as its central character.
04/26/02
Top CriticThere has always been something likable about the Marquis de Sade.
06/07/02
Top Critic[A] treacherously seductive and highly disturbing film...
08/08/04
That the film opens with maggots crawling on a dead dog is not an out of place metaphor.
04/26/02
This Sade is hardly a perverse, dangerous libertine and agitator -- which would have made for better drama. He's just a sad aristocrat in tattered finery, and the film seems as deflated as he does.
08/29/02
Top CriticIt is intensely personal and yet -- unlike Quills -- deftly shows us the temper of the times.
04/04/01
It's a rosy coming-of-age romp that refuses to see the horror even in the severed heads from the guillotine.
08/30/02
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