"In the end it may not be much more than a glorified, period-piece soap opera,...but with riveting performances like these, who cares?"
Comment
10/14/08
The Duchess (2008)
61
%
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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.
Theatrical Release:05-09-2008
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
More absorbing and honest than your typical costume drama. Fiennes's performance of the painfully antisocial Duke is impeccable.
10/12/08
You'd think a film where the titular character gets drunk at a party and sets her wig on fire would be more fun.
10/11/08
Underwhelming but serviceable well-crafted 18th-century English period piece costume drama with modern feminist flavorings.
10/11/08
And here we thought Diana was dead.
10/11/08
The film rehabilitates the duchess, sanitizing her behavior
10/10/08
You'll spend a lot of time in The Duchess wondering if the film has a point.
10/10/08
Though sumptuous and well-acted -- especially by Fiennes -- the picture fails to establish Georgiana as a figure just crying out for a film treatment.
10/10/08
It's a beautiful period piece that will send you to a bookstore for a better account of the dirt and vice at its core.
10/10/08
A visually sumptuous, emotionally lacerating melodrama.
10/10/08
Within the sphere they've chosen for their story -- really more of a romantic triangle -- it works.
10/10/08
The problem isn't the history that the filmmakers leave in, but how much they leave out.
10/10/08
It’s a curiously inert, workmanlike production: a whole lot of pomp and incircumstance.
10/10/08
The Duchess is largely successful because it manages to offer those degrees of humanity and romance (if not blandness) amidst the rest of its potent, bodice-ripping drama.
10/10/08
Knightley turns in a performance that impresses us with the strength of her character even as we're appalled by the system that produced it.
10/10/08
...a slightly too serious period costume drama
10/10/08
The tightly corseted title noblewoman is less interesting than the tightly wound people who bedevil her.
10/10/08
...has fine performances and is reasonably true to the facts...
10/10/08
Intelligently written, superbly acted, beautiful to look at and happily free of anachronisms.
10/10/08
Knightley, whose glamorous reputation has outstripped her acting talents until now, is subjected to a barrage of close-ups, which could have been disastrous. Yet it isn't. In this one, she really comes of age.
10/10/08
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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