I went with my 12 year old daughter and this is definitely NOT a 12A movie - beware! More like a 15. Loved the movie though.
barb, 06/10/08
“The Duchess” is visually stunning to the point of distraction. The sets, costumes and manners are straight out of the “BBC meets the National Trust” school of period drama; some scenes are so authentic that they could have been designed by Reynolds or Gainsborough.
Although based on Amanda Foreman’s book “Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire", the film concentrates on Georgiana’s marriage to the powerful Duke of Devonshire and her extra-marital affair with Charles Grey, a young Whig politician who eventually became Prime Minister.
Despite the denials, there are unmistakable parallels with Diana, Princess of Wales. Georgiana’s marriage is dynastic rather than romantic and she is a good mother, naturally gifted with children. As a wife, she suffers from the world's legal and moral double standards, which turn a blind eye to her husband’s adultery, whilst labelling her “a whore” when she decamps to Bath with her lover.
There are brief glimpses of another, more gutsy side of Georgiana which is never really developed; this is the difference between a “safe at the box office” film and a great one. Georgiana Spencer was a highly intelligent and well educated young woman who, as the wife of the Duke of Devonshire, wielded considerable political clout.
Ralph Fiennes gives a fine performance as the Duke, although we are left wondering about the influences that shaped him. Keira Knightley does well as an 18th century Diana, but is no match for the real Georgiana. She deserves better. There was a time when the BBC would have dedicated a 13-part prime-time drama to this great-granddaughter of Sarah Churchill.
HB, 03/10/08
Sorry, this isn't going to be a witty or in depth review but I felt compelled to say that this has to be one of the most depressing films I've seen in a long time. Yes it was beautifully filmed and well acted etc, but I found the 'scenes of moderate sex' to be actually really quite horrific and not in any way 'erotic'; personally I felt the 12A certificate inappropriate.
Moose, 10/09/08
This is a gorgeous film, with a fine, intelligent script, brilliantly adapted from Amanda Foreman’s unwieldy biography, and rendered well above average by an outstanding performance from Ralph Fiennes as the Duke. But why, why, did they have to cast Keira Knightley as the heroine (apart from the obvious financial considerations)?
She is a very beautiful girl, and she looks very nice in those perfume ads, but she is completely, hopelessly wrong in the physical sense, for an eighteenth century beauty. She’s such a twenty-first century girl – tall, slender, virtually bustless, her face expressing both fragility and strength with its huge brown eyes and actually rather large chin. It’s a complete waste of time to put her in a corset and it’s utterly implausible that the Duke would identify her as good breeding stock. (Of course, the opposite is also true, and I suspect that the real Georgiana would be judged a bit of a porker nowadays if she turned up to a red carpet do.)
OK, that’s my rant over. Keira Knightley did in fact do a pretty fair job of gaining the audience’s sympathy for that classic soap-opera fare, the woman who appears to have everything, but is really deeply unhappy. The writers downplayed the less appealing parts of Georgiana’s story, such as the gambling debts amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds, which her husband paid off, and her other love affairs, and concentrated on what modern audiences have no difficulty in identifying as the clear injustice of a wife’s legal powerlessness in the eighteenth century. Georgiana’s husband is thus so outraged by her suggestion that if he takes a mistress and brings her to live in the same house, she could as a quid pro quo enjoy some recreational rumpy pumpy with the beguiling Dominic Cooper, that he immediately punishes his wayward wife with a stern marital rape.
Fiennes was utterly convincing as a man who can only relate emotionally to his dogs, in whose eyes women are not for talking to, whose idea of foreplay is to remove a woman’s clothes first, whose world-view, as a bastion of patriarchal power, is absolutely fixed and certain, and whose eyes can equally convey wistful longing or furious rage. The film is absolutely worth seeing for him alone; but it does have other attractions. The 12A certificate was rather a surprise, in fact, because much of the film features some very explicit bonking, it’s just that the participants (as in Rowlandson cartoons) are not naked. There is one superbly erotic scene close to the beginning, where the Duke prepares to enjoy his seventeen year old bride by gradually removing all her complicated clothing. The camera lingers lovingly on the impression left upon Georgiana’s back by the tightly laced corset, as the Duke in a kindly but peremptory manner, like a rich uncle, instructs her, now wearing only her stockings, to get into the bed. Phew!
This film was made by the BBC and not Hollywood, so in a way it’s rather disappointing that someone decided to concentrate in a very Hollywood way on exploring the erotic implications of eighteenth century aristocratic marriage instead of giving us a bit more dramatic meatiness seasoned with a hint of realism. The stunning costumes tell us that the action of the film ranges from the 1760s to the early 1800s, yet Georgiana never appears a day older. However it is what it is, and it’s well worth a look.
Andrea Hopkins, 09/09/08
If you are planning an entertaining evening out, don't spend your money on 'The Duchess'. It is a potentially fascinating story, sadly sold out on the 'Diana' ticket, with vapid results. For at least two hours, all that happens is that Keira Knightly stands around looking alternately happy and sad, Ralph Fiennes stands around being icy and hostile, and Charlotte Rampling merely stands around. Admittedly they do this in some marvellous costumes and fine settings, but it was an effort to stay awake. On top of this, no-one ever seemed to get any older, during what - given the number of children conceived and born during the film - must have been a period of several years. Even the children themselves seemed to stay the same throughout. Perhaps this was deliberate - and deeply symbolic of the total lack of any psychological development in any of the characters... Very disappointing.
Jessica Rose, 09/09/08
This film is an impressive triumph of style over content. Beautiful Keira Knightly’s latest bodice buster fails to please on so many levels. The postulated reflection of the current royal families’ dysfunctional relationships are played without depth of emotion or conviction. The splendidly English locations and beautiful frocks are appropriately lavish, yet if the BBC had spent more of the budget on a better script, then they might have produced something more than a "Sunday Afternoon Tea Time Treat".
Jet Black, 09/09/08
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