The Duchess
The film begins with the current Duke of Devonshire, played by Ralph Fiennes, in need of a wife to produce him a male heir. He decides upon Georgiana, Keira Knightley’s character, who at the time is just under eighteen years of age. They wed, and move to the massive mansion that is the home of the Duke. Georgiana, young and naïve, thinks that this marriage is more than just a duty, which is exactly what the Duke sees it as. He has no sincere interest in her, just her ability to produce him a son so that he might pass on his position to him.
Georgiana isn’t able to produce the Duke a son for about a decade, during which time the Duke has several affairs and never takes an interest in his daughters, including one that he fathered with a maid several years before Georgiana, and two that he had with Georgiana. Georgiana meanwhile continues to take care of the three children while growing all the more depressed. She meets Bess Foster, played by Hayley Atwell, while the Duke and Duchess are on vacation in the city of Bath. The Duke throws himself on Bess and she eventually moves in and even marries the Duke, but not before she becomes good friends with Georgiana.
Another significant portion of the Duchess’ life revolves around Charles Grey, played by Dominic Cooper, a young man and up and coming leader in the Whig party who has always had strong feelings for Georgiana. They eventually have a child in secret (secret from the English population that is, but not from the Duke), and Grey would eventually go on to marry someone else and become Prime Minister when Georgiana could not decide to leave her children behind and run off with Grey.
Georgiana is also somewhat of a fashion icon for England throughout much of her life and this idea is the main point behind several scenes in the film.
In many ways, Georgiana’s life was a tragedy as she was married off so young and yet in a relationship without love, only purpose. The Duke was forceful, uninterested, and often unkind to her and there’s no denying that Georgiana, despite living in a mansion and having all of the ‘comforts’ of being a Duchess, had a very tough life.
As far as the film itself goes, I’m usually not interested in these types of historical pieces, although this one is well acted, scripted, and the settings and costumes seem very authentic. For what it tries to be, The Duchess does a great job, but that doesn’t necessarily make it very interesting or intriguing for everyone of course. You might call this one a ‘chick flick,’ although it ends somewhat sadly, and I’d be more inclined to call it a Shakespearian tragedy really. No matter what you call it or whether or not the subject material is of interest, The Duchess is a well made film.
Your Grace, On Blu-ray
The Duchess comes to Blu-ray packing the expected 1080p widescreen picture and Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround Sound. The picture quality in several areas leaves much to be desired, but overall the film looks good. The parts where the film really suffers is on background and flesh tones, especially during the darker scenes. During these scenes, the background and the skin of the actors is very blocky, that is, it has a lot of grain to it. Outside scenes and those scenes with more lighting are much better looking. The audio package does a more consistent job, and it’s great throughout. The soundtrack is nice, although this is a heavily dialogue driven movie and it sounds just fine.
For extras, there aren’t many, but they felt sufficient nonetheless. Included are:
-How Far She Went…Making The Duchess – This is a six part feature that runs a total of twenty-two minutes. It’s in HD, and includes interviews with the major actors, director Saul Dibb, even a historical advisor to the film. Scenes and stills from the film are shown.
-Georgiana In Her Own Words – Here we have a seven minute feature in HD with the film’s Producer and the author a book on the matter talking about some of the original letters that the real Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.
-Costume Diary – A five minute feature in HD with the Costume Designer of the movie talking shop; lots of stills and footage of the film, and a little bit of production footage and stills are included.
-Two Theatrical Trailers
As stated, there really aren’t a lot of features here, but given the type of film it is (and my level of interest in it), these seemed sufficient. With that, let’s get to the summary.
