The Duchess

I’ll keep this short and sweet (well, sweet-ish), because it doesn’t deserve much more than that.  It’s not a bad film, it just could have been so much better.  At almost every moment where it might make some statement, or develop its own fledgling voice, it hushes itself and carries on as if nothing really happened, which just gets annoying over some two hours.

Kiera Knightly and Ralph Fiennes perform pretty well together, despite Fiennes uncharacteristic one-note (maybe two) performance, and thank goodness the plot takes no time to get going early in the movie, because the next few hours take their precious time. In fact, the acting on the whole is pretty good, with the best performance not really coming from anyone in particular – which is disheartening, because Knightly could have been fantastic, as she was in Pride and Prejudice or Atonement.  Here, she has shining moments, but they aren’t really anything to write home about, because the script itself is so mediocre.  It’s the kind of movie they show in purgatory: not good or bad, just so-so, neither here nor there.  It never says anything.

And on that note, it should be noted that there are several clever directorial choices, but most of them go unrealized.  There is the refrain throughout of the mirror that art and life hold to one another, with royal artists capturing royal moments with pencil and sketchpad.  There is also the play which The Duchess herself goes to see, The School for Scandal, a famous Restoration comedy in the theatre world, which speaks volumes about self-commentary in this particular movie.

The design aspects of the film were very aesthetically pleasing to me, especially Knightly’s costumes and the mansions where the action takes place for most of the film.  The score is conventional and actually not very oft-employed, but still very nice.

Don’t get me wrong, here: it isn’t a bad movie.  It just isn’t very good.  And it is that limbo between saying something about feminism or women’s rights or freedom or sexuality and not saying anything at all that this movie treads so overtly as to be frustrating to the audience, like the following exchange between the Duke and the Duchess:

Duke: For the life of me, I could never understand, why women’s clothes must be so damn complicated.

Duchess: It’s just our way of expressing ourselves, I suppose.

Duke: Whatever do you mean?

Duchess: Well, you have so many ways to express yourselves, but we must make do with our hats, and our dresses.

These, and so many like them, begin a cinematic conversation about something, but then gloss over as if it didn’t occur.  In addition, there are also political undertones that never really surface completely, like the struggle between the Whigs and the Tories in 18th century England.  I guess I didn’t follow through on my short-and-sweet promise, but I will stop here anyway.  I do not recommend this movie unless it’s Girls Night Out or something similar, because otherwise (and maybe even then), you will probably be disappointed.

Rating: 1.5/4 Stars