The Duchess (2008)

What can you say? Director Saul Dibb ain't no Ang Lee and this ain't no Sense & Sensibility (1995). Unlike the latter however, this isn't based on fiction, rather a best-selling biography by Amanda Foreman. It certainly explains its flatness, whilst not quite justifying it.

Newly wedded Duke (Ralph Fiennes) and Duchess (Keira Knightley) of Devonshire struggle to bear a male heir. He fools around (developing the now infamous love triangle) and in the end so does she. We are led to believe that whilst his infidelity is solely to increase the chances of a son, hers is in the name of love. Throw in the beloved dogs and you've got the whole family.

Performances are fine, surprisingly not too shouty. Still, "I want an Oscar" can be heard in most scenes throughout. She would get my vote if it quenched her thirst for period dramas. At least, however, we can be thankful it's not a film about Jimmy's mother. Think about that for a second.

As commented by Xan Brooks in Jason Solomon's Guardian weekly podcast (06:38) this is yet another fine period piece to be slotted in up in the ranks of Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (1993). Everybody expected him to pull off a miracle piece, to do something new for the genre. Instead he offered a very solid piece of filmmaking featuring extravagant sets and beautiful costume designs. Of course I'm ad-libbing, I would say that Scorsese's film is much better but this still falls under the same category of solid filmmaking. It's paint by numbers, but the paint is very certainly metallic.