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Duchess, The
Keira Knightley lends a touch of elegance to this true-life story of the bed-hopping bluebloods who were ancestors of the late Princess Diana
Just months after Diana's death in 1997, history buff Amanda Foreman made the best-seller list with her biography of Duchess Georgiana of Devonshire. She also scooped the Whitbread Prize and sold the film rights. The tabloid appeal of the biography is due to how the extraordinary lives of these two women, Georgiana and Diana, echo each other across a two century gap. Aside from being born into the Spencer family at Althorp, both were celebrated beauties who, after marrying into the higher echelons of society, wilted in the glare of the public spotlight. But the more pressing issue, at least as far as director Saul Dibb is concerned, is that each 'picture perfect' marriage would gradually rot from the inside thanks to another woman lurking in the shadows. This is a sympathetic portrait, but Knightley never plays the victim. Instead, Georgiana comes across as a strong-willed young woman who repeatedly bucks the system, albeit out of desperation and a growing sense of insecurity. In contrast, Ralph Fiennes rarely gets a chance to relax that stiff upper lip as her husband, the Duke of Devonshire. He's forced into the stereotype by predictable observations of marital discontent, like the dining room scenes that find each party at opposite ends of a table the size of a Saxon longhouse. Eventually, Hayley Atwell pulls up a chair between them as Lady Bess Foster. Ironically, it is Georgiana who invites Bess to stay at Chatsworth House after Bess' husband scarpers with the kids. What had been a close friendship between Georgiana and Bess quickly turns sour, but they gradually form a new (and somewhat perverse) bond based on shared experience. They have, after all, both been wronged by the Duke who essentially buys Bess with the guarantee of reuniting her with her children. As the years pass, Bess's reasons for staying become ever more tenuous, but this only adds to the intrigue. Her relationship with Georgiana is also more convincingly portrayed than Georgiana's love affair with the would-be Prime Minister Charles Grey (the incongruously boyish Cooper). They share a passion for politics but director Dibb doesn't spend enough time outside the bedroom to properly convey that. Instead it appears that Georgiana only stuck her head above the parapet, campaigning for social reform, because she quite fancied the tall bloke in the tight breeches. Of course it is a doomed love and Knightley must suffer in soft focus. She does it very well, but this is a radical departure for Dibb, who previously directed hard-hitting dramas like Bullet Boy (2004) and the BBC miniseries 'The Line Of Beauty' (2006). The real pity is that, given her political credentials, Georgiana was more a 'people's princess' than Diana ever was and yet this fascination with the juicy details of her love life reduces her to a conventional romantic heroine. That's on top of a little mild fetishism - lingering close-ups on frilly garters, bone-crunching corsets and a lesbian clinch. In a final parallel with the life of Princess Diana, those behind the camera are only interested in scandal and sensation, and they don't need facts to back up their story. It's a glossy tabloid expos?? in the finest tradition of British media hackery. Verdict A guilty pleasure. Less historical drama, more high-class soap opera. |
