subject: The Duchess Movie - My Thoughts And Opinions [print this page] The Duchess was made a few years ago now and was a British period drama set in the 18th century. It starred Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes in the central roles. Knightley played the part of the Duchess of Devonshire (in England) and Fiennes played her husband, the Duke of Devonshire.
The movie centred on the ongoing battle between these two characters. The Duchess is married to her husband mainly for contractual reasons and the Duke is only really interested in her because she can help him produce an heir to the throne.
The film itself is a pretty decent period piece because it does a great job of capturing that particular period. The costumes are authentic and the setting is absolutely beautiful. The accompanying music is also really good and helps to create just the right atmosphere.
However I have to say that the storyline is a little bit weak and predictable. It all centres on the Duke and his urgent need to have a son. Frustratingly the Duchess keeps producing daughters, and this leads to the Duke becoming increasingly annoyed and angry with his wife.
This eventually leads to him having relations with his wife's best friend, which the Duchess inevitably finds out about. However the Duke's influence makes it impossible for her to kick her out of their house.
What follows is essentially just further development of the main characters, without wanting to give too much away about the plot. It is a fairly basic storyline and includes very few gripping or emotional moments.
It is not a bad movie by any means, but it just feels as if this kind of story has been done so many times before. While it is a nice bit of escapism, and you do genuinely feel like you are going back in history, it would have been nice to have had a more layered story, with a little more depth.
The problem is that people are so focused on creating a period movie, that they often neglect to create a really compelling story to go with it. You need more than a nice setting and some decent costumes to create a really top quality historical movie, and sadly this one failed to deliver.
So overall I would say that The Duchess deserves a score of around 5 out of 10. It is a decent enough movie to watch if you're bored or have a few hours to spare, but I wouldn't advise people to rush out and buy the DVD because it's not as good as it could have been.
