Nominated for two Oscars and winning one (best costume design), it became a kind of running joke between me and a friend of mine to always refer to this movie as 'The Academy Award Winning Film 'The Duchess''. For awhile we seemed to bring the film up a lot, but I never actually saw it until a few weeks ago.
The movie is based on the true story of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (Keira Knightly), an 18th century English aristocrat known for her fashion sense, ahead of her time political outspokenness, and a scandalous personal life (though how much of the latter was known at the time, I'm not clear). Georgiana would have an out of wedlock daughter with future British Prime Minister Charles Gray (Dominic Cooper); but was married to William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes) with whom she had three biological children and a complicated relationship. The Cavendish's would in time become functionally a polygamists household, with Elizabeth 'Bess' Foster (Hayley Atwell) being the third party, until marrying the Duke with Georgiana's permission following her passing.
The story this reminded me most of is 'Anna Karenina', which Ms. Knightly would also star in a film version of four years later. Knightly is good in this, as are the main supporting players, however I think Ralph Fiennes has the most interesting and complicated role. The Duke is an often cold, rather boring man, but he has depths to him that he doesn't often let out and you can actually see him grow over the course of the film. Yes he is selfish, but he also feels boxed in by the role he is expected to play, though like his wife he pushes social strictures to the breaking point.
It's a beautiful looking picture, gorgeous locations and costumes, some neat lighting. I rather liked the soundtrack, largely composed of period classical music but I was quite taken by the end credits suite, which I have subsequently listened to several times. This is a kind of high class melodrama, boarding on soap opera, but still a fine film, and a rather sexual one. ***
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