The Duchess (12)

Starring: Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Dominic Cooper, Hayley Atwell, Charlotte Rampling, Simon McBurney.

Seventeen-year-old social butterfly Georgiana Spencer (Knightley) must marry into money to ensure the social standing of her family in mid-18th century high society.

The imperious Lady Spencer (Rampling) encourages her daughter to accept a proposal from the brutish and considerably older Duke of Devonshire (Fiennes).

The nobleman urgently needs a male heir and Georgiana will be paid handsomely to carry out her duties as a fertile, childbearing woman.

When she gives birth to not one, but two daughters, his eye wanders and he takes Georgiana’s friend Bess Foster (Atwell) as his mistress.

The infidelity drives the young wife ever closer to her one true love, Charles Grey (Cooper), ambitious protege of Whig Party leader Charles Fox (McBurney).

Director Saul Dibb (Bullet Boy) ventures confidently into the realms of lavish costume drama with this well upholstered adaptation of Amanda Foreman’s best-selling biography Georgiana, Duchess Of Devonshire.

The Duchess waltzes through the period with elan, recreating the giddy social whirl, courtesy of Michael Carlin’s meticulous production design, Michael O’Connor’s resplendent costumes and Jan Archibald’s voluminous, cascading wigs.

It’s truly a feast for the senses but Jeffery Hatcher’s screenplay leaves us feeling emotionally undernourished. As history lessons go, this is a tad dry.

Knightley conceals her heroine’s emotions a little too well behind the powder and rouge, and Cooper doesn’t have sufficient screen time to convincingly establish Grey as the love of Georgiana’s life.

However, Fiennes is impressive as a cold, repressed man, constrained by the traditions of his age, revealing the chinks of vulnerability and sadness behind the character’s cruel facade.

RATING: ***

Damon Smith