Kiera Knightley and Ralph Fiennes
Screenshot: The Duchess
Back in the late 18th century, while England was dealing with disobedience in its colonies and a call for higher democratization at home, Georgiana Spencer wed William Cavendish, the Duke of Devonshire, and through her partner’s Whig-affiliated circle of associates, she began taking an interest in politics, mostly by supporting the career of future prime minister (and enthusiast) Charles Grey. In Saul Dibb’s The Duchess– adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from Amanda Supervisor’s biography Georgiana– Keira Knightley plays the duchess as a freethinking style plate, appreciated by the girls of London for her sense of style and her persistence that there’s no such thing as “freedom in small amounts.” However her domestic situation tests her public calls for universal liberty, as her partner– had fun with creepily calm hazard by Ralph Fiennes– advises her that she has no genuine power in their relationship. He can sleep with whomever he desires, and squelch her aspirations at any time, simply by threatening to remove her kids. To some extent, The Duchess recalls Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, in that it’s about bed-hopping and courtly routine during a time of revolution. Dibb isn’t interested in delivering an audience-unfriendly art film, however. His Duchess is completely populist and middlebrow, filled with all the high wigs, thick powder, perfect diction, and uncomplicated discussion that define bodice-ripping status images about silently suffering souls. Knightley’s brand of muted iconoclasm has actually always been appropriate to just these type of coach-and-corset motion pictures, and as an outcome, the story of her character’s fall from idealism to functionality becomes relatively moving. [Noel Murray]
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Source: https://www.avclub.com/the-best-movies-to-watch-now-on-paramount-1846411590