This is meant to be Ms Knightley's film, and in many ways it is. She is in every frame, looks dazzling throughout, and must act with something behind the eyes because in two of her scenes... I welled up rather seriously.

| Aug 23, 2018

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

It's disturbingly shallow, focused so tightly on one woman's feelings of repression and loneliness that it lacks any perspective on their causes.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 18, 2008

It chronicles the saga of a vibrant and forward-thinking woman hampered by the constraints of a rigid society.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 18, 2008

It's a curiously inert, workmanlike production: a whole lot of pomp and incircumstance.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 10, 2008

Intelligently written, superbly acted, beautiful to look at and happily free of anachronisms.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 10, 2008

Knightley, whose glamorous reputation has outstripped her acting talents until now, is subjected to a barrage of close-ups, which could have been disastrous. Yet it isn't. In this one, she really comes of age.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 10, 2008

The Duchess is clearly Knightley's movie, ultimately rising or falling on her performance. She's up to the task, capturing both the charm and grace that made Georgiana so captivating.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 9, 2008

Knightley seems overly deliberate even in her mischief, and doesn't have Kirsten Dunst's talent for turning acting into a flirtatious game of charades.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 3, 2008

Fiennes, an actor who disappears into roles like ice in a teacup, makes the Duke a complex and almost sympathetic figure, a bulky, unappealing man whose interests are in all the wrong things.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 26, 2008

Beguiling.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 26, 2008

It isn't just eye candy; there's an active intelligence behind this design.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 26, 2008

Though extravagantly pretty, The Duchess still manages to be a costume drama in which the drama survives the costumes.

| Original Score: B | Sep 26, 2008

It's easy to joke about Knightley's fondness for period dramas. But we shouldn't underestimate her ability to channel the historic and modern into one compelling figure -- or her grasp of the power of dress-up to free performance.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 26, 2008

I'm not sure why The Duchess doesn't wholly succeed, because the pieces are all there and they're very watchable.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 26, 2008

Sure, The Duchess is a lavish exercise in style over substance, but it's a well-crafted, superbly acted one.

| Sep 26, 2008

This is scandal-mongering fun that also lays bare the deforming power of the male aristocracy.

| Sep 26, 2008

[Viewers] may wish to heed the marital advice Georgiana's mother offers early in the film: 'Equip yourself with patience, fortitude, and resignation.'

| Sep 26, 2008

The Duchess is this season's "painted cinema." All the colors are there and it's never hard to look at, but it's ultimately as two-dimensional as a trip to the art gallery.

| Sep 26, 2008

While I much liked The Duchess, this portrait feels unfinished.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 25, 2008