The Duchess.

"[F]or all its frisky high jinks, brocaded homes, and creamy bosoms, The Duchess is a tragedy about the terrifying vulnerability of even the richest women in a society that deprives them of property rights," writes Ella Taylor in the Voice. "As a tale of mature self-sacrifice, the movie would be almost unbearably moving were it not for [Keira] Knightley's insubstantial performance."

Updated through 9/19.

"Adapted from Amanda Foreman's biography [of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire], Saul Dibb's costume drama doesn't press too hard on the similarities between the heroine and her descendant Princess Diana, and for the most part avoids getting weighted down by the marble floors and golden chandeliers of 18th-century British courts," writes Fernando F Croce in Slant. "Deprived of elements that might have given its powdered wig some darker roots, The Duchess feels rarefied next to Marie Antoinette, a more inventive chronicle of a young woman navigating personal freedom and historical determinism."

"In the hands of a filmmaker with an actual point of view - Sally Potter, say, or Mike Leigh - this could be a potentially inflammatory tale," writes Alonso Duralde at MSNBC. "But with British TV vet Saul Dibb (The Line of Beauty) at the helm, it's just a story about a woman who makes one mistake after another."

"Yes, she must choose between affection, fame and family - though it's impressive how Georgiana, like Sarah Palin, manages to be icon, political agent and supermom, without any visible help from a nanny - unlike The Duchess, which revels in the opulent lifestyles of the rich, famous and aristocratic, while bemoaning their repressive society too." Mark Asch in the L Magazine.

Sam Adams talks with Ralph Fiennes for the Los Angeles Times.

Earlier: Reviews from the UK and Toronto.

Updates, 9/19: "Like most costume dramas of this distaff sort, The Duchess wants you to pity Georgiana while also indulging in every luscious detail of her captivity," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "She may have a pimp for a mother and a bore for a husband, but just look at those verdant landscapes dotted with grazing sheep (no grubbing peasants), the fabulously ornamented gowns, leaning towers of wigs, palatial digs and troops of silent servants. (It's period-lifestyle pornography.)"

"[T]he young duchess (Keira Knightley) speaks in the soft Sloane tones more typically associated with Lady Di in her early years than with the Georgian grandee she is meant to be playing," notes Andrew Stuttaford in the New York Sun. "Meanwhile, Ralph Fiennes, in a subtle, show-stealing portrayal of the duchess's cold, buttoned-up, and older husband, manages to punctuate his performance with very specific hints of Prince Charles's lugubrious tics, mannerisms, and phraseology — hints that will make a British audience, at least, shudder or snigger, depending on mood."

"Only Fiennes comes out smelling like an English rose, turning the duke into one of his signature upper-crust reptiles," writes David Fear in Time Out New York. "He deserves a sequel."

For Salon's Stephanie Zacharek, Knightley "carries the weight of the movie around her effortlessly - and this is a rather slender girl to be bearing a historical parade float of this size."

"As directed by Saul Dibb (working from a script he co-wrote with the odd combination of Casanova's Jeffrey Hatcher and Anders Thomas Jensen of Denmark's marvelous After the Wedding), The Duchess is so handsomely done and so adroit at avoiding missteps that it's hard not to be content," writes Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times.

"Knightley's brand of muted iconoclasm has always been well-suited to just these kind of coach-and-corset movies, and as a result, the story of her character's fall from idealism to practicality becomes fairly moving," notes Noel Murray at the AV Club.

"As movies like this go — stately homes constantly arustle with the sound of lingerie falling gently to the parquet floors - it is quite a lively, and even occasionally a rather touching, piece," writes Richard Schickel in Time.

Posted by dwhudson at September 18, 2008 8:10 AM