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Keira Knightley and I have at least one thing in common, and that's a definite appreciation for the period film. In the past two years, the actress has gone from starring in the ravishingly masterful Atonement to the critically-panned Silk (which I didn't think was good per se, but I didn't hate it either, which is probably due in part to my positive bias towards this type of movie), and now she's carried out the title role in The Duchess, which isn't exactly a memorable period piece or a masterpiece of said genre, but it's still an enjoyable entry into it. As I said earlier this year in regard to The Other Boleyn Girl, if you like this type of movie, you'll be perfectly fine. To be clear, I don't just like any and all period movies I see (and there are some horrible ones out there), but it just happens to be a genre I gravitate to, which explains why I love the slow-moving Barry Lyndon but wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone.
If The Duchess aspired to being considered for any awards, it was surely in the costume and set design categories, as the film is stellar in those areas. Though conventional, the story manages to be consistently interesting, and Keira Knightley infuses an energy into her character that we haven't seen since her Lizzie in the 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice. As Georgiana, she doesn't miss a beat, and one suspects she may have had a better shot at an Oscar nomination (which she got for Pride & Prejudice) if this weren't such a lightweight, somewhat inconsequential film. Ralph Fiennes was honored with an unexpected Golden Globe nod in his supporting role as the Duke, but now that I've seen the film, it comes as no surprise because Fiennes (who has played the role of villain a couple of times) brings a twist to his performance, by never being the cardboard "bad guy" of the period piece (rude and close-minded), and instead displaying the anxiety that his character experiences, always letting us know that he, too, isn't exactly thrilled with the way things work out for neither himself nor for our heroine.
The flaw to be found in the plot of The Duchess is that the film rushes unnecessarily through several key points. Normally, I have the opposite criticism, but this is actually a case in which the movie could've afforded to be longer. It glosses over the development of the secret romance that unfolds between Georgiana and Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper), so the chemistry between the lovers isn't always palpable, and similarly, the blossoming of the friendship between Georgiana and Bess (Hayley Atwell) and the predictable turn of events that occurs once Bess starts sharing living quarters with her and her husband is also handled haphazardly. However, I did think that the captions at the end that explain what would occur over the course of the years following the film's climax were a nice touch and didn't suffer from the annoyingly imposing feeling we usually get from those in other films - one of the most interesting aspects of The Duchess is that even though it doesn't have a fully happy ending, there's still a fair amount of joy to be drawn from the closing, and that gives me more satisfaction than any other type of conclusion. Ultimately, I wouldn't refer to The Duchess as a regal motion picture, but it's still worthy of being enjoyed by its target audience.
6/10
