The Duchess: Movie Review (2008)

Directed by Saul Dibb, written by Dibb, Jeffrey Hatcher and Anders Thomas Jensen, 105 minutes, rated PG-13.

The new Saul Dibb movie, “The Duchess,” opens in 1757 with Georgiana Spencer (Keira Knightley) tossing herself about with great gales of giggles and gaiety on the great lawn of a greater estate.

While she’s having a gas with some male and female friends, high above her in that estate is her formidable mother, Lady Spencer (Charlotte Rampling), who is busy navigating decisions about Georgiana’s life that will turn it into one corseted soap opera.

Wigs will burn in this movie (literally), fine wine will put out the fire (literally), but as for the smoke left in its wake, let’s just say its stink will linger awhile longer.

The complication is this: It appears as if the cold, socially stunted Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes) has designs on young Georgiana’s womb; he wants to fill it with the makings of a male heir. Since he can’t do so without first marrying Georgiana, papers are drawn up, promises are made that essentially come down to Georgiana being a good brood mare, and approvals are made by both families to allow the wedding to take place.

It’s only after her fate has been sealed by others that Georgiana is handed her sentence by her beaming mother. She will become the Duchess of Devonshire, to which Georgiana initially cheers. The gowns! The jewels! The status! The love of the people!

The lesbian sex? The trysts? The duke’s live-in lover, Lady Elizabeth Foster (Hayley Atwell)? Georgiana’s “secret” affair with her own lover, Charles Gray (Dominic Cooper)?

Saul Dibb based his movie on a script he co-wrote with Jeffrey Hatcher and Anders Thomas Jensen from Amanda Foreman’s biography, “Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire,” and in true soap fashion, he doesn’t waste a moment in mounting all sorts of difficulties for Georgiana to overcome, only one of which will be explored here. The duchess produces her share of children, true, but all are girls. Several miscarriages follow, along with two stillborn sons. A male heir does come late in the game, but only after the duke rapes her. And what’s Georgiana to make of her relationship then?

For many reasons, Georgiana pointedly recalls that other Spencer, Diana, whose life the movie takes great pains to parallel, and for good reason. Doing so, after all, makes the 16th century seem almost current and relevant, but the good news is that this isn’t so much a distraction as it is a curiosity. Since Knightley’s performance is galvanizing--she can be a political force in one scene, a victim in another, a fashion icon the next--those parallels don’t overcome the movie so much as they complement it.

Across the board, the cast is as fine as the attention paid to the Academy Award-worthy set and costume design, which is as lovely as the duke and duchess’ relationship is ugly. The downside, of course, is that no matter how tense it becomes between them, class rules above all else, so at some point, if they are to go on, a truce must be in the offing. It’s the getting there that makes “The Duchess” one of the better costume dramas to come along in awhile.

Grade: B+