Review

Review Date: 5-October-08
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK

The Duchess (2008)

Movies like The Duchess are gussied-up tabloid articles, airings of dirty linen belonging to real people who once lived in more opulence than the average moviegoer can divine. This is not necessarily a bad thing, although all biographies suffer from a lack of closure and this biography suffers from a chronic depressing streak. The noblewoman in question is Georgiana, teen bride of an 18th-century British duke who dazzled all England with her vivacity while enduring an unhappy marriage. Her husband was a dullard who enjoyed sex with every woman but herself, apparently viewing his wife as a utensil whose sole function was to provide a male heir. Disappointed with her producing girls (to add to the daughter he had fathered before marriage), the duke took up with Georgiana's closest friend and kept her as a live-in mistress, socializing and sitting down to dinner with both women at his side. Despite the liberality of this arrangement, he refused to condone his wife's affair with an up-and-coming politician and eventually reduced her to a state of submission through the calculated application of threats.

The Duchess is a downer not just because of the particulars of Georgiana's life but also because it illustrates the lot of even the wealthiest women of the time: to be either pregnant or nursing every day of your life, and to be utterly without rights even as regards your own children. Of course, the movie mitigates the harsh historical realities by dressing them up with sumptuous costumes and settings. Into these Keira Knightley fits nicely, looking beautiful and inspiring sympathy with expressions of determination and grief. She holds her own opposite Ralph Fiennes, whose repulsiveness in the role of the duke is of a very particular nature. A lethargic egotism yields to fits of violence and flashes of perception which might seem incompatible were he not a spoiled titan in a traditional system of privilege. His wife possesses an expansive soul which yearns for fulfillment; he possesses an unimaginative mind which expects to get exactly what it wants with as little fuss as possible.

Georgiana's romance with the future prime minister, Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper), touchingly reveals the innocence that remained inside the seasoned darling of the drawing room. But her other relationship forms the weak point of the film. She befriends the beleaguered Lady Elizabeth Foster (Hayley Atwell) in two hasty scenes, then shares a sexy moment with her which looks like pure audience titillation — I cannot believe they left it out of the trailer. This leads abruptly to Lady Bess' betrayal, her excuse for which does not sufficiently explain what follows. Why did the duke hold on to this mistress when he had not been close to any other woman before? Why did Bess put up with his frosty personality after she got what she wanted? Why did Georgiana not only tolerate Bess' presence in her home but reconcile with her and live in three-part harmony for years? Clearly more was going on with the members of this unusual arrangement than the movie explains, and Bess requires more than the cursory explanation she receives.

What The Duchess does make clear is that life was no walk in the park for its heroine, so viewers who like upbeat lessons with their period costumes should beware.

Copyright © 2008 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.