A fine movie about a not so tragic story

Rating: 8/10 (29 January 2009)

Although critiques about this movie have been ambivalent, I was very satisfied with the result. The two protagonists Fiennes as the cold and prosaic Duke and Knightley as the beautiful and volatile Georgianna meet the demands of their roles with success and gusto. Although I lack experience about the manners of 18th century British aristocrats, that is how I imagined them to be.
Knightley is very fine in the portrayal of a leader of society, an equivalent of let's say Churchill's mother in her time, exercising indirect political influence in an age that women could not directly participate in politics. Her love is not consummated, she is separated from one of her children and she has to cohabit with the mistress of her husband who happens to be a personal friend. But still her fate does not seem bad to me compared with how other women lived in Europe at the time. To have a prosaic and non-communicative husband is the lot of most women, although usually he does not happen to be a Duke.
Therefore while the movie is supposed to be a drama, I regarded it more as a comedy of manners. I wonder what moral effect on the servants had the private life of their masters and how the latter prohibited them from rendering it public, although I am not aware of the existence of the gutter press by then.
It seems that Knightely has found her calling in the portrayal of women of the gentry or the aristocracy and I think those characters suit her style very well. I recommend this movie for her presence as well as that of Faines and the people in the supporting roles, Mr. Grey the lover and Mrs Foster, the mistress.