The Duchess

The Duchess is an interesting and enjoyable, though moving, drama about the Duchess of Devonshire (Keira Knightly) married off at 17 purely to produce a suitable male heir for the Duke, who seems to care nothing for her at all and in fact not to care much about anything else bar his pet dogs.

Sadly this young Duchess is seemingly only able to produce daughters which places a heavy strain on any little relationship there is; and the Duke's strong attraction to his mistress who lives under the same roof as them doesn't help to ease the situation either!

Being based on a true story I suspected, as I imagine most people watching did,  that it's not all going to 'work out beautifully' but I recognise that this is sometimes a good thing and I've certainly criticised many a all-too-nice Hollywood ending in the past. In this case, the ending as portrayed is true to the historical period in attitude and probably 'best of a bad lot' but because I felt for the well acted and realised characters (especially the Duchess herself) it was hard to see them suffer... I suppose if nothing else that just proves how much I did  relate to these characters, however different their lives are from our own, by the end of the film.

Advertised as an allegory for Princess Di (using the "There were three people in her marriage" tagline as well as the fact that there was a genuine Spencer family connection) but there's really very little of that in on the screen and it's almost totally just marketing department ploy - Keira herself has apparently indicated she's unhappy with the approach taken by the advertising too. There are some contemporary parallels drawn, especially with the forward thinking (for the time) Duchess herself, but it's far from what is implied on the rear cover of the DVD!

What I urge you to do is ignore this supposed Diana parallel and instead sit back with an open mind and drink in this sumptuous, beautifully made, emotionally stirring, well acted and absorbing film... that is what I did and I enjoyed The Duchess as a nice change from my usual action/SF fare (though that's not to say action films can't make you think or care about characters too... especially if they're SF!) and, for what it's worth, my wife and my Mum enjoyed it even more than I did!