It's a timeless story. Boy meets girl. Boy marries girl to produce a male heir. When things don't work out in the Y-chromosome department, boy plays hide-the-mutton with various scullery maids. Meanwhile, girl falls in love with other boy. Jealousy. Betrayal. Extremely pouffy hair.
If you've seen period dramas set in the English countryside in which the women wear breast-crushing corsets and the men are stock characters who are either old and evil or young and tasty, you've already seen The Duchess. But if you find yourself dragged to it on a date or by a rogue band of English majors, take heed: the film often wavers between unintentionally hilarious and hilariously uncomfortable. Keira Knightley is surprisingly endearing as Georgiana, the eponymous Duchess, and only occasionally resembles a preying mantis wearing 18th century couture. Ralph Fiennes struggles to make the most of his Duke, but the character is such a one-dimensional bastard that he doesn't have much to work with. At my screening, the audience burst out laughing when Ralph took off his shirt. Poor guy.
The Duchess is not completely without charm though: throw in the quick tease of a lesbian tryst, the fact that the straight-laced Duke inexplicably keeps calling Georgiana "G" (evoking mental images of Snoop Dogg in a gilded waistcoast) and Keira's wig catching on fire and you've got a movie that is unexpectedly refreshing. There are also some redeeming elements for film geeks: the parallels between Georgiana's ever-changing hairstyles and her character's thematic development are especially thoughtful, and the cinematography and costumes are beautiful. Ultimately, however, the film is forgettable - its reliance on costumery and set decoration fails to counterbalance an otherwise predictable plot.
