Spirited and stylish costume drama with heart and soul.

Rating: 7/10 (29 August 2011)

A girl of nineteen (Georgiana Spencer Cavendish played by Keira Knightley) is to be married-off to an older titled man (The Duke of Devonshire played by Ralph Fiennes) as a form of provider-of-male-heir business arrangement (brokered by her mother - played by veteran Charlotte Rampling), rather than as a union based on true mutual love.
Based - loosely - on a true historical story.
(Parallels to the doomed marriage of Diane and Charles being played upon in the marketing and - in my opinion - in some of the acting on-screen!)
I am a bit hesitant over costume drama. Too often the thing plays out like a fashion parade with too little moving central drama to keep my eyes from my watch. This isn't too bad, even though the mounting and costumes ARE still the only real prize winners on display. You feel that you are really going back in time. The well preserved mansions of England doing sterling service to the cause.
To date this is KK's biggest - and most taxing - dramatic role and she handles it very well. A solid and polished performance without needing to clear her mantelpiece for awards. Although hard to believe that she is - later in the piece - a multiple-times-mother. She would have put on weight to play a rickets victim.
Fiennes is better at playing not-very-nice than most actors and here he plays a man with little to no moral fibre. Indeed by today's standards someone for the Sex Offenders Register. Blame his over-privileged background and parents as much as him!
Two previous films came to mind while watching: Barry Lyndon and Amadeus. Films with more money to spend and more plot to follow. This does not give the social context of these films although this might diminish sympathy for The Duchess. Who is - at worst - a frustrated and loveless bird kept in a gilded silver cage, rather than living in the disease, filth and poverty that the vast majority of the population had to endure way back then.