Issue date: 10/3/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Paramount Vantage [Click to enlarge]

There's a reason Keira Knightley's latest period film is only in select theaters. Despite the gilded settees, marble-columned halls and brocade bodices, the film is a grim portrayal of the social chains that bound the 18th-century woman.

This isn't a boy meets girl, boy gets girl chick flick. And females needing a happily ever after ending should look elsewhere.

Based on a true story, the teenage Georgina (Knightley) makes a catch of the cold and powerful Duke of Devonshire. Filled with naive ideas of love, Georgina has a rude awakening when she realizes love was not in the contract. Her only purpose is to produce a male heir. Only days after the wedding, the Duke begins having affairs culminating in the end with Georgina's best friend, Lady Elizabeth Foster.

Fast-forward six years and Georgina becomes a powerful London socialite and illustrious patron to literary circles and political campaigns.

The major flaw of the film is how Knightley does not measure up to the historical version of the Duchess. She was the vixen beauty who held the social torch prior to the reign of Marie Antionette. Perhaps Knightley could just not shake the adolescent and tempestuous attitude of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.

But despite Knightley's unpersuasive acting as the society empress, she shines as the ill-treated and trapped mother. Like Sofia Coppola's interpretation of Marie Antionette, director Saul Dibb paints Georgina as the wounded, trapped woman unable to have a love affair of her own, not necessarily the seducer history remembers as.

Knightley's co-star Ralph Fiennes, the Duke, leaves you wondering whether he is just a bore or a creep.

No doubt, it's tough to be a powerful sexaholic who thinks only of playing with his dogs and producing a male heir. Literally, that's his whole character. But Fiennes's acting is unconvincing, flat in most scenes until he flies into a rage and rapes his wife.

And speaking of flat, the chemistry between the Georgina and her politico lover Charles Gray (Dominic Cooper) is virtually non-existent. The mystery, seduction and intrigue are like a little butter spread on too much bread.

But if your heart flutters at the mention 18th-century costumes or furniture, this film is a must see on the big screen. Michael O'Connor's costume direction (Last King of Scotland, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day) makes the film, with exquisite beading and ruched silks, that distract you from the acting.

In contrast to Knightley's other period pieces, wit is only sprinkled in a few scenes. The score by Rachel Portman transports you to the era and complements the all-around somber tone.

Besides the scenery and costumes, Dibb nails one thing for sure, the details of life in the 18th century.

In one scene the camera focuses in on a servant standing rigid and silent while the Duke and Duchess rail in a yelling match about his infidelity. You only wonder what the servant is thinking.

More than anything, the film's theme is the denial of personal happiness for the sake of children and duty to protocol. It's Knightley's show, and in the end she delivers well with an almost tear-jerking scene where she is forced to abandon her child.

So take note, this is not a date movie - unless your lover enjoys wife rape scenes, repressed women and costume eye candy.

Chloe Daley can be reached at cdaley@statehornet.com

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