Dominic Cooper and Keira Knightley in The Duchess

British bio-drama showcases rich costumes and Keira Knightley – 4 Stars ****

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 1/16/2009 – “She’s a wonderfully strong female role, an extraordinary and very alive woman, and I think any actress would relish playing Georgiana,” says Duchess star Kiera Knightley.  “She’s a dreamer and an idealist who is suddenly stuck in a marriage with a husband who is the very opposite of that.”

The Duchess is based Amanda Foreman’s award-winning biography “Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.” Georgiana Spencer was from one of England’s richest and most landed families. She married into another wealthy landed family. The Duchess shows Georgianna’s extravagances and her flaws, as well as her political talent.

You may notice similarities between Diana Spencer and Georgiana Spencer. Both were loved by the people. And like her ancestor Georgiana, Princess Diana was unhappy in marriage to a husband she found cold.

“The Duke is someone who shows no emotions,” says Knightley. “Georgiana is an incredibly emotional, passionate woman, and it seems there’s no clear way out of this complicated relationship.  But, for everything Georgiana goes through, she actually finds a way to eventually triumph over things and regain power in a time when women had so little.”

“Ralph was just wonderful and the thing we both wanted to do was to make sure no one looked like the villain in this,” says Knightley. “The way we looked at it is that it was a case of two personalities that really didn’t mix. In the beginning neither of them knew if the marriage was going to work, but it soon became clear they were two people who just kept missing one another.”

“I love the storyline of Charles Grey. It’s heartbreaking and completely fascinating,” says Knightley.  “Georgiana was a woman who had never experienced love until she met Charles Grey.  Suddenly, here’s this man who’s right for her in every way. He’s passionate for politics, for life, for Georgiana…and yet she can’t be with him.  Dominic Cooper was fantastic in the role.”

“I’ve done period pictures before,” says Knightley.  “But, nothing could have fully prepared me for this. Some of the wigs were so heavy, I couldn’t even lift my head!  People kept shouting ‘timber!’ as I walked past.”

“In the story, the duke’s emotionally constipated, rather cold, unemotional and quite cruel, but he’s a man of his time,” says Duchess star Ralph Fiennes.  “So there are certain values that he holds to. We have to understand those values and not pre-judge them, which I thought was a good starting point.”

“I thought this is a man who probably does feel quite deeply down somewhere, but he’s holding on to a code of behavior and belief that he sees as important,” says Finnes. “It’s very easy to box him in and label him, but I think my job playing him was to see him through the values of his own time and play that quite strongly.”

“I read the Amanda Foreman book which is fantastic, but in it the Duke remains enigmatic, so I also read another couple of books and managed to find a bit more about him,” says Fiennes.  “He was very contained and never very expressive or demonstrative socially, but people who knew him said he was incredibly informed and knowledgeable and his opinion about something was always considered the final word.”

“I’m very impressed by Kiera’s spirit and how present she is and her dedication and her discipline,” says Fiennes. “She combines her sweet nature as a person with a focus, discipline and a wonderful emotional interior range. She was a pleasure to work with”.

Director Saul Dibb brings to life a vibrantly lavish, yet rapidly changing England in the time of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the madness of King George. “It was absolutely key to find two people who naturally had the strange kind of chemistry that the real Duke and Duchess obviously had,” says Dibb. “When Keira and Ralph first appeared together for the screen test, they completely embodied the parts and I got a tingle of excitement.”

“You would go into Ralph’s trailer and there would only be pictures of 18th Century dukes on the wall,” says Dibb. He’d only be listening to music from the period. I think that really helped him to reflect what it was like to live then.”

The screenplay is by Dibb, Jeffrey Hatcher and Anders Thomas Jensen. The picture quality is great on Blu-ray. The beautiful scenery of that time period is captured well on camera.

Blu-ray special features include “How Far She Went… Making “The Duchess” with interviews of cast and crew. It covers Location, hair, costumes and make-up. There’s an interview with Georgianna, Duchess of Devonshire author Amanda Foreman. Amanda reads some letters that Georgianna actually wrote. The costume diary talks about fashion in that time and getting the costumes right for the movie. Audio is in 5.1 Dolby TrueHD  with options for French and Spanish.

Actors: Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Dominic Cooper, Charlotte Rampling, Hayley Atwell
Director: Saul Dibb
Writers: Saul Dibb, Amanda Foreman, Anders Thomas Jensen, Jeffrey Hatcher
Producers: Alexandra Arlango, Amanda Foreman, Andrew Semans
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number of discs: 1
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, brief nudity and thematic material.
Distributor: Paramount Vantage
Blu-ray Release Date: December 27, 2008
Duration: 110 minutes