Thanks for the memories!

Absolutely Fantastic

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Britons might be sorely divided in their desire to be in or out, but there is one topic on which they are forever united - their passion, or rather their obsession with their Royalty. Here's one small indicator. When we rented an apartment in Cambridge, one of the first tasks we had to undertake was to move the huge volume of our landlady's book collection to the garage. More than half of those garage full of books dealt with the Royal family!Of course, the most obsessed over member of that family is undoubtedly Princess Diana. A film, based on the life of her great-great...aunt the Duchess of Devonshire which had an uncanny similarity with Lady D's own life, is bound to generate a lot of interest. Apparently, the trailer of this 2008 movie even used a couple of Lady D shots to ensure that.However, for folks outside the orbit of that royal obsession, this is basically about the life of an aristocratic woman trapped in the social mores of her time, despite all the worldly privileges that came with her rank and status. Unfortunately, the movie could not rise above its curiosity value (even while giving us an excellent glimpse into the English aristocratic life in the eighteenth century) as the events, instead of flowing smoothly, had somewhat of a jerky feel. As if we are given a lesson in history, above all.Keira Knightly, as expected, is a natural in the role of an old-world English Duchess. But Ralph Fiennes is totally wasted in the role of the Duke of Devonshire. Watching this, I wouldn't have believed him emerging with that commanding presence of M in Spectre a few years down the line.

Such a shame that they used Kiera Knightly for this role. She is totally unconvincing. She walks around with that annoying trademark of her; like some brainless spice girl with too much amphetamine and happy pills in her stomach. She always has that particular smile which adds nothing to her character. Well, it adds to her own character and that seems pretty consistent. Like some other reviewer wrote: she has no sex appeal. She looks like an lab experiment of an attempt to combine a male / female gender appearance. I cannot think of an reason why she is such a popular actress. She always has the same approach of the character. And with this English costume drama, with a great cast, she was the weakest link. I can understand if Ralph Fiennes had great difficulties with the performance level of Mrs. Knightly. Who wouldn't? I think that the producers should be ashamed of this movie.

I saw this movie in cinema and this is the way to do it!On one side, this movie is not well researched. Nearly every actor does not match with the role. Keira Knightley is not the 18th-century sex-bomb, you would expect from the contemporary paintings. But the hole political role of the duchess is not told in this movie. So you can not understand why in one scene is an great audience. Charles Grey was a young boy, when the duchess married the duke of Devonshire and this is the reason why the first scene in the movie is complete nonsense - like nearly all the story line. The duke was not a old men in this time, and the duchess was significantly older than Mr. Grey etc.. The dark side of the duchess, her faults (drugs, gambling etc.) were not told. So the story of the movie is something like a lie.On the other hand, there are very nice costumes. OK, you cannot see why the duchess of Devonshire was so famous for her costumes because she has all the film quiet normal and mostly informal dresses for the period. I think, it's a nice film for women. If you forget, the background and the historical life of the duchess of Devonshire - perhaps than nobody would see the film in cinema. So they needed a title. The life of the real duchess was quiet interesting full of adventures, illness, journeys, political arguments, intrigues etc.. But here is only a story of a nearly stupid rich women in some problems with her brutal husband. I admired the locations and the costumes but as a movie without any real interesting conflict and mostly boring not really motivated actors its hard to look at it without regret.

But a lovely movie. I have read biographies on both Georgiana and her sister Henrietta, and the sisters were practically joined at the hip throughout their lives, obviously this is not the real story of her life, since a sister or brother is never even mentioned. And the Duke did not need to threaten her...both she and Harriet were aware of the disgrace of being divorced and did everything to prevent it, as both carried on affairs until their health failed. And both wound up hugely in debt from gambling and excess, what would be tens of millions today. Yes, she went off to have a baby in secret but her husband did not know, much less command it. Henrietta did the same. Both knew they would,lose their status and children if they were divorced. The relationship with Bess and the Duke was true. She lived with them forever, later marrying the Duke must to the distress of some family members and grumbled for more money when died.The acting is good...one of my favorite KK performances (unlike Anna Karenina, yikes)