A chronicle of the life of 18th century aristocrat Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who was reviled for her extravagant political and personal life.
Georgiana Cavendish is a beautiful and clever woman who becomes a celebrity of British high society when she marries the Duke of Devonshire. Beloved for her trend-setting fashion designs as well as her political activism, Georgiana’s fire and wit make her a beloved figure everywhere but her own home, where her cold and distant husband’s control over her is stifling, soon sending her into the arms of a another man — an act that soon forces her to learn about the brutal difference in the rights afforded to 18th century men and women.
Set in the Georgian era.
“The Duchess” is a handsome historical film, impeccably mounted, gowned, wigged and feathered, where a husband and wife spend hours being dressed in order to appear at dinner to argue about whether the mutton is off. With Keira Knightley playing the duchess and Ralph Fiennes playing her husband, such a conversation is a minefield. The man has no conversation, addresses her primarily to issue instructions and is obsessed with the production of a male heir, who would have much to inherit, including the grandest private house in London, and Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, the favorite of all British country houses. This is not one of those delightful movies based on a Jane Austen novel. It is about hard realists, constrained in a stifling system and using whatever weapons they can command. I deeply enjoyed the film, but then I am an Anglophile. – Roger Ebert
Although it skims the surface, The Duchess is an uncommonly well-crafted historical feminist tearjerker — both anti-patriarchal and a monument to motherhood. – New York Magazine
Staring Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Charlotte Rampling, Dominic Cooper, Hayley Atwell, Simon McBurney, Aidan McArdle, John Shrapnel, Alistair Petrie.
Rated PG-13