‘The Duchess’ | 3 stars
By ROBERT W. BUTLER
The Kansas City Star
The Duchess” is a soap opera — albeit a visually resplendent soap opera packed with big hair, big houses and big emotions.
It also has Keira Knightley, looking fantastic and showing tremendous range as Georgiana, the 18th-century Duchess of Devonshire.
Knightley is in just about every scene of Saul Dibb’s film, and she so dominates the proceedings that one forgets she’s only 23. It’s scary to contemplate what she’ll deliver in another decade.
Based on Amanda Foreman’s biography, the film covers only about a decade of Georgiana’s early years and centers on her marriage of convenience to the older William, Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes), one of Britain’s richest men.
William is an undemonstrative, emotionally calcified fellow whose only real concern is producing a male heir. For the vivacious young Georgiana, only 17 when they wed, this is an unfulfilling situation, especially since for several years she is unable to produce the next duke, earning her husband’s contempt.
She tries to make up for her chilly marriage by devoting herself to fashion, becoming a trendsetter at soirees with ever more outrageous wigs, hats and dresses.
But she’s also astute enough to have an interest in politics. Her husband appears to have few genuine convictions, but he throws his money behind the Whigs; the beautiful, witty Georgiana becomes a big draw when she introduces the party’s candidates at rallies.
Despite living in a time and place that put great emphasis on strict codes of behavior, the characters in “The Duchess” get into sexual shenanigans worthy of “Grey’s Anatomy.”
When Georgiana brings home the abused Bess Foster (Hayley Atwell of “Brideshead Revisited”), William begins an affair with the newcomer. Georgiana is accustomed to her hubby boffing the servant girls, but she’s devastated by this betrayal from the woman she considered her best friend.
When she protests, she is raped by William and eventually rebounds into the arms of a young Whig politician (Dominic Cooper, last seen as the groom in “Mamma Mia!”).
This does not go over well with William, no believer in gander/goose equality. He reacts with an impressive demonstration of financial and personal power.
The screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher and Anders Thomas Jensen is no less melodramatic for being based on fact, but it has been perfectly acted by the cast. Director Dibb (this is only his second feature) does a fine job of creating an atmosphere that is simultaneously luxurious and stifling.
The filmmakers attempt to broaden their scope by highlighting Georgiana’s struggle for personal freedom in an environment where a woman — even a duchess — enjoys few rights that cannot be rescinded by the men in her life.
But more than anything “The Duchess” is a visually sumptuous, emotionally lacerating melodrama. It needn’t be anything more to satisfy.
One last observation: Though saddled with a character whose colon appears to have been packed with concrete, Fiennes delivers a magnificent performance. We’re supposed to dislike the duke, but Fiennes is so good — presenting William as an emotionally arrested child with the wherewithal to get whatever he wants — that William becomes just as interesting as Georgiana.
Here’s a man who rarely changes expressions, yet thanks to Fiennes we can read his interior life simply by what he does with his eyes.
He makes the bad guy terribly human.
‘THE DUCHESS’ ★★★
Director: Saul Dibb
Cast: Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Hayley Atwell, Dominic Cooper
Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, brief nudity
Running time: 1:45
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To reach movies editor Robert W. Butler, call 816-234-4760 or send e-mail to bbutler@kcstar.com.
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