Set at the end of the eighteenth century, The Duchess is the story of the beautiful and, glamorous Georgiana Spencer, the most fascinating woman of the age.
While her beauty and charisma made her name, her extravagant tastes and appetite for gambling and love made her infamous. Married young to the older, distant Duke of Devonshire, intimate of ministers and princes, Georgiana became a fashion icon, a doting mother, a shrewd political operator and darling of the common people. But at the core of her story is a desperate search for love.
From Georgiana’s passionate and doomed affair with Earl Grey to the complex ménage à trois with her husband and her best friend, Lady Bess Foster, The Duchess is a very contemporary tale of fame, notoriety and the search for love.
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"some might say that Keira Knightley doesn't do enough modern day films, but she is simply born to play these kind of roles"
Okay, it all sounds familiar - Keira Knightley, period costumes, gigantic mansions, crying.. more crying... That said, this isn't a copycat period drama. It is a rather brutal study of the importance of class in the 18th Century, and how one's reputation overrides one's freedom as a human being. Our paranoia in 2008 is nothing compared to the harsh whispers of the 18th Century. Some might say that Keira Knightley doesn't do enough modern day films, but she is simply born to play these kind of roles.
Like her descendant, the late Princess Diana, there were three people in Georgina's marriage to the self-absorbed Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes), who chooses Georgiana's only friend as his mistress. The film is engaging throughout and beautifully scripted, not to mention the delightful settings and costumes. Without Keira Knightley or Ralph Fiennes it could have been the next BBC TV Christmas Special but Knightley shines again with an outstanding, emotional portrayal of Georgina. Fiennes doesn't just do his duties in this role - he steals every scene with a humorously captivating performance of the harsh and quite brutal Duke of Devonshire. "Please put out Her Grace's hair," instructs the Duke, departing swiftly for another room. Dominic Cooper is spirited as Georgiana's true love, but struggles during the heavier scenes with Knightley.
The constant fight upstream for Georgina really puts our own lives into perspective - 'How wonderful to be that free' is something we all think about at one point or another - but really, is anyone ever truly free?