The Duchess recalls Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, in that it's about bed-hopping and courtly ritual during a time of revolution.
Comment
09/18/08
The Duchess (2008)
61
%
Tomatometer
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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
121 - 140 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
The picture is a winner, thanks in no small part to Knightley and her accomplished ability to communicate utter despair with only a faint ripple of her porcelain features.
09/18/08
The events on screen are ultimately as slight as Knightley's frame.
09/18/08
[Knightley] breathes real life into the role of Georgiana Cavendish, an 18th century aristocrat with striking parallels to another, more modern, British notable.
09/18/08
The Duchess is the best women's movie of the summer. Don't get too excited.
09/18/08
A heart-affecting drama about a beautiful 18th century woman imprisoned in a cage of wealth and privilege.
09/18/08
Just a handsomely appointed but lugubrious period soap opera centered on one of the distant ancestors of the so-called 'People's Princess.'
09/18/08
'The Duchess' is worth seeing if only for the magnificent costumes and sets.
09/18/08
A worthwhile addition to a genre that's been driven into the ground by weaker filmmakers who know where to rent the costumes, but don't understand the importance of storytelling.
09/18/08
As tepid peruke-and-corset periods go, The Duchess goes down with relative ease.
09/17/08
[The filmmakers] have accomplished their goal of making the unorthodox life of the late-18th-century noblewoman Georgiana Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire, relevant to a 21st-century audience of moviegoers.
09/17/08
Knightley does the best she can to enliven such thin Masterpiece Theatre material, but eventually, the sheer emptiness of the pageantry wears her -- and us -- out.
09/17/08
It has impeccable production values but feels like a Masterpiece Theater production of a Harlequin romance novel.
09/17/08
It looks like outtakes from the nauseating bubble-gum fantasy Marie Antoinette.
09/17/08
In the hands of a filmmaker with an actual point of view--Sally Potter, say, or Mike Leigh--this could be a potentially inflammatory tale. But with TV vet Saul Dibb at the helm, it's just a story about a woman who makes one mistake after another.
09/16/08
Lovers of sumptuous photography and dazzling costumes will be much pleased: those who want more discussions of politics might be otherwise.
09/15/08
Although it skims the surface, The Duchess is an uncommonly well-crafted historical feminist tearjerker -- both anti-patriarchal and a monument to motherhood.
09/15/08
Saul Dibb's foamy adaptation of Amanda Foreman's "Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire" focuses its soft soap attention so much on its leading lady's personal struggles that it all but leaves out the story's broiling 18th century political and social context
09/13/08
Its real tragedy is that it never lets gain an understanding of that woman, and thus, in the end is little more than yet another fluff period drama with some nice costumes.
09/11/08
The Duchess is an emotionally engaging drama with a terrific central performance from Keira Knightley. Recommended.
09/05/08
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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