Georgiana - The People's Duchess...................

Rating: Null/10 (27 August 2011)

Beautiful but naive upper - class girl,Georgiana Spencer marries selfish,arrogant serial - womanising Royal whose only motive is to sire a son and heir.Couldn't happen nowadays,of course.The world has moved on. "The Duchess" is a beautifully paced,elegantly costumed Regency romp with a fine performance by Mr R.Fiennes as the Duke of Devonshire,a man without a moral compass who no doubt thinks ethics is a county between London and Kent. As his virgin bride Miss K.Knightley is indeed beautiful,but she rather overdoses on the serenity,giving us endless close - ups of her classic if immobile three - quarter profile. Miss C.Rampling is magnificent as her mother,cold - eyed and acquisitive,greedy and grasping,pimping her daughter to a vile man whose proclivities she must have been aware of. There are some jolly moments from Sheridan and Fox,but generally the film is serious in tone,concentrating on Georgiana's determination to be taken seriously as a wife and a political woman. Born perhaps two hundred years too early,Georgiana's story indicates that Women's Suffrage had deeper roots than perhaps many imagined.