The Duchess

The Duchess tells the story of Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire, who was a famous woman in Britain in the latter part of the eighteenth-century. Her maiden name was Spencer, which means that she was an ancestor of Princess Diana, and it is apparent that the parallels of her life to her unfortunate descendant are the meat behind the making of this film.

Georgiana, played by Keira Knightley, is a teenage girl when she is married off to the Duke, Ralph Fiennes. He is interested in her only in that she has the ability to bear him a son. She quickly finds out that he is a decidedly cold fish, who seems to care only about his dogs. He is also a serial philanderer, but she swallows her pride and hobnobs with politicians and theater people, and becomes a celebrated socialite.

Tensions increase when her first two children are girls. Then she makes the acquaintance of a Lady Elizabeth (Hayley Atwell) who becomes her friend. I won't give anything away, but the relationship between the two of them and the Duke becomes extremely complicated. When she falls in love with a young member of Parliament (Dominic Cooper) the feces hits the fan, and the Duke reveals an ever darker aspect of his personality, and she realizes she is imprisoned in the marriage.

All of this is handsomely presented. The costumes, sets, music and photography are exquisite. The acting is uniformly good, and the script is lively, if not a tad too contemporary (did anyone in the 1780s really use the phrase, "let's make a deal"?) But as I watched this film I felt a certain deja vu. It's terribly familiar. There have been many costume dramas over the years concerning British royalty, and if there hasn't been a movie about this particular woman before, it sure seems like there has. I felt a certain restlessness, and was more interested in when it would be over more than I was about the characters.

What elevates this film into one worth seeing is the performance by Fiennes. His Duke is a singular creation, a man who is emotionally stunted, almost reptilian in his responses to humanity. He tells Georgiana at one point that he loves her, adding the caveat that it is the way he understands what love is. Georgiana tells her mother (Charlotte Rampling) after a few days of marriage that the man has no interests at all (other than the dogs), and it's to Fiennes credit that he takes this epitome of the class system run amok and makes him fascinating to watch. He is not overtly an ogre, sort of an empty powdered wig, but one that can be sinister when it suits him.

I also thought Knightley was quite good, even if the performance is reminiscent of some of her other roles. She has certain mannerisms that she still carries around with her, and while these tics aren't in themselves objectionable, the more one sees of her the more one can recognize them.

The director of The Duchess is Saul Dibb, and everything looks great. The pace is a little stately, and at times the action veers into potboiler romance novel stuff, but for those who like this sort of thing it hits all the right notes of the genre. I would have liked to see something a bit more transcendent, though.