The Duchess

The Duchess is as breathtakingly beautiful as Keira Knightley. And it’s not simply a structure, an edifice. Every time you feel disposed to write it off as just another eighteenth-century costume drama, not only does it visually stun but its raw wit (exemplified by Ralph Fiennes’ insensitive, sexist Duke) and emotion (as expressed in Knightley’s moving performance – a turn of real range) make it more than a tad confounding.

There’s something odd and rather wonderful about The Duchess. It’s like Marie Antoinette without the boredom. It’s like The Edge of Love, sapphism and all, with Hayley Atwell seducing Knightley. It’s strangely contemporary and it’s directed by Saul Dibb, best known for urban drama Bullet Boy.
 
Maybe he’s the explanation. His take on the story of the Duchess of Devonshire tells her tale without turning the film into either Georgette Heyer (her of the Regency romance novels) or heritage cinema. There’s no reverence – visually yes, but psycho/sociologically? No.
 
Georgiana Spencer was married as childbearing chattel to the Duke of Devonshire. Unable to give birth to sons, however, the Duke sought pleasure elsewhere, namely with her best friend Bess (Atwell), who he moved into their home as his mistress, together with her three sons. He was, notoriously, ‘the only man in England not in love with his wife.’
 
The Duchess meanwhile, a feminist and politico, gave her support and love to eventual Prime Minister Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper, who still hasn’t proved he’s the real deal), but was ultimately forbidden him because she was a married woman. Not all is fair in love and the eighteenth century.
 
This is one of the film’s most obvious observations; being a woman at this historical juncture wasn’t great, and the point that women accepted their social corsetry – however much they kicked against it – is well made. More modern is the depiction of the titled as celebrity; the talked about, the fashionistas of their day – Knightley, drunk and setting her hair alight, reeks of Amy Winehouse. And though we like to think that the idea of three people in a marriage is wholly contemporary in our era of multiplicity, it’s clear we didn’t set the precedent. It just happened behind closed doors rather than out in the open air.
 
Inside and outside – that’s the clearest metaphor in The Duchess. At the beginning Georgiana is outside in the garden, gambling with her girlfriends on their male companions running a race. Inside her mother negotiates her marriage to the Duke. By the end of the film, husband and wife sit inside, while their children and his mistress play freely in the garden. She’s been tethered, reined in, but the fact that her story is still being told is welcome proof that her spirit lives on.

Lorien Haynes

Anticipation:

If the poster’s anything to go by it’ll be endless shots of Knightley looking gorgeous. Yawn.

Enjoyment:

Unexpected for exactly the kind of reasons that make a great film.

In Retrospect:

Curious to see it again to see if the initial diagnosis stands up.