The Duchess

Copyright 2008, Paramount Vantage

Boy, is The Duchess silly. Yes, I used the word "silly," not good or bad. How else to describe a film that gets a chance to set Keira Knightley's hair on fire? OK, technically, it's her wig, but I was too busy gaping as Ralph Fiennes follows up that disaster by saying, as matter-of-factly as possible, "Put the Duchess' hair out." Really? How did director Saul Dibb find time to place that in the film?

Why focus on such ridiculousness instead of the strange love quadrangle that makes up the majority of this film's plot? I suppose it looks more visually impressive (as this entire film does, to its credit) than a simple storyline, but that's a major fault of this movie. The story, focusing on the Duchess of Devonshire (Knightley, of course), the Duke of Devonshire (Fiennes, stiffer than ever), Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper), and Bess Foster (Hayley Atwell), and the love that binds them all, to a certain extent, is as bland as most costume dramas are these days. Knightley and Fiennes, in particular, are good, but not marvelous. The design of the film is indeed quite luscious and grand (especially on Blu-ray), but the ostentatiousness and sumptuousness comes at the expense of the film being any...you know, good.

What makes the story somewhat frustrating is the idea that Knightly's Duchess is being persecuted for her affair while everyone else is allowed to cavort as much as possible. But, this was the time when the Duchess' sole duty is to provide a male heir for her husband. The Duke, an awkward but lusting man, wants his wife to produce a son; nothing else is good enough, and even then, it's just another part of a life not worth living. At the end of the day, this film's positives are far outweighed by the negatives; the love affair with future Prime Minister Gray doesn't work not because of a lack of chemistry between Knightley and Cooper but because they're given so little time to work their feelings out. They say they love each other, but how can we be so sure of it? You can say something as much as you like, but it doesn't work without enough sufficient evidence, and there's little here.

Most costume dramas are given the stigma of being stuffy and boring, as the characters exude those qualities. It's not always true, but movies like The Duchess do not help eliminate that stereotype, only enforce it.

Two stars out of four