The Marquis could so easily have been a disastrous role. But for playing the Marquis, Rush does deserve Oscar notice. Wright has given him some beautiful lines, tart as an unripe apple and filled with sexual innuendo and Rush delivers them with a delicious hiss. But the Marquis is not just naughty, he's poignant, particularly when his quills are taken away and we start to understand the depths of his compulsion. He writes to be unsettling, but also to live.
Phoenix is a standout as well.
But Kaufman has drawn such a tender, moving performance out of him as the naive and repressed priest with a lust for the laundress that it should be impossible to pigeonhole him anymore. The Abb is a gentle man in the truest sense and yet with his priestly robes swirling around him, he's also incredibly sexy. Finally seeing what he can do, one is reminded of the incredible acting promise of his late brother River. Closing with the striking piet that immediately precedes it would have been just as satisfactory, perhaps more so. But with a movie this worthy, that's a fairly small complaint.