The sumptuous dresses and hats are the best and almost the only reason to see the film.
Comment
10/03/08
The Duchess (2008)
61
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:158
Fresh:96
Rotten:62
Average Rating:6.2/10
Consensus: While The Duchess treads the now-familiar terrain of the corset-ripper, the costumes look great and Keira Knightley's performance is stellar in this subtly feminist, period drama.
Runtime: 1 hr 45 mins
Genre: Dramas
US Box Office: $13,823,741
Synopsis: After PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and ATONEMENT, Keira Knightley continues her reign as the queen of the period film with this 18th-century costume drama. The corset-clad actress stars as Georgiana... [More]
Starring: Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Charlotte Rampling, Dominic Cooper
Director: Saul Dibb
Reviews for The Duchess
61 - 80 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
...fell short by not going into Georgiana's only-alluded-to political life outside her marriage.
10/03/08
Director Saul Dibb pretends that all this stuff is new without actually making it so, and Knightley provides a few requisite Oscar clips with her performance.
10/03/08
Now that he seems past his fey middle period, Ralph Fiennes is doing some amazingly good work onscreen.
10/03/08
Top CriticRelies on energetic chemistry between Knightley and Fiennes but its much ado about nothing.
10/02/08
There is rarely a look at the outside world, and isn't that one of the reasons we watch period pieces? We've been here. We've done this. Period.
09/30/08
...a film that could have been a bold feminist statement becomes fodder for those who just loved The Other Boleyn Girl.
09/29/08
Delicious in a costume-drama-y way that will delight fans of the genre while being as entirely lightweight as the enormous ostrich feathers on Georgiana's hats...
09/28/08
It's well done, but this 18th-century Fear of Flying left me a little cold.
09/26/08
Fiennes, an actor who disappears into roles like ice in a teacup, makes the Duke a complex and almost sympathetic figure, a bulky, unappealing man whose interests are in all the wrong things.
09/26/08
Provided you don't take it seriously, it makes for an addictively entertaining diversion that's as hard to stop watching as the books are to stop reading.
09/26/08
Beguiling.
09/26/08
Knightley doesn't carry the film, which wouldn't work without Ralph Fiennes' perfectly calibrated performance.
09/26/08
It's unfortunate that the movie tries to make so many oblique comparisons to more modern tragedy (paparazzi with sketchbooks; yes, we get it!), since Georgiana's life seems fascinating enough on its own.
09/26/08
The Duchess gives us a gorgeous world, a detailed picture of a time and place that could have been painted by Constable, Gainsborough or Watteau. But you wouldn't want to live there.
09/26/08
There's nothing here to show us what a remarkable woman Georgiana was, if indeed she was at all.
09/26/08
It isn't just eye candy; there's an active intelligence behind this design.
09/26/08
Though extravagantly pretty, The Duchess still manages to be a costume drama in which the drama survives the costumes.
09/26/08
It's easy to joke about Knightley's fondness for period dramas. But we shouldn't underestimate her ability to channel the historic and modern into one compelling figure -- or her grasp of the power of dress-up to free performance.
09/26/08
I'm not sure why The Duchess doesn't wholly succeed, because the pieces are all there and they're very watchable.
09/26/08
Latest News for The Duchess
January 07, 2009:
People's Choice Awards Winners Announced
The 35th annual People's Choice Awards were handed out on January 7, 2009. A complete list of film nominees, with winners in bold, follows below. More...
January 03, 2009:
Not just another royal goddess in a gilded cage costume drama, the film couldn't be more current now, when women bidding for the highest political offices are told to go home and take care of their kids or iron male shirts. Sexual subversion in corsets. 
More...
December 28, 2008:
Not just another royal goddess in a gilded cage costume drama, the film couldn't be more current now, when women bidding for the highest political offices are told to go home and take care of their kids or iron male shirts. Sexual subversion in corsets.
More...
October 12, 2008:
Emarketingmag.com: Not just another royal goddess in a gilded cage costume drama, the film couldn't be more current now, when women bidding for the highest political offices are told to go home and take care of their kids or iron male shirts.
More...
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