{"id":4395,"date":"2009-07-14T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-13T23:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=4395"},"modified":"2018-03-14T11:24:14","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T03:24:14","slug":"the-duchess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/07\/14\/the-duchess\/","title":{"rendered":"The Duchess"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blog-duchess-03\" The Duchess<\/a><\/em> (2008) \u2013 on rental. British actress Keira Knightley seems to have settled into a persistent role based on the most recent films she\u2019s been in, and it\u2019s period <\/em>dramas. There were those three Pirates of the Carribean<\/em> movies, Atonement<\/em>, Pride & Prejudice<\/em>, and now there\u2019s The Duchess<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This new film\u2019s loosely based on the 18th century English socialite and aristocrat, Georgiana Cavendish, who was stuck in a loveless marriage constructed solely for the purpose of producing a male heir for William Cavendish, the then Duke of Devonshire.<\/p>\n

When she fails to produce such an offspring in the first years of her marriage, the Duke turns horndog and goes on it with Georgiana\u2019s best friend. She finds out, and starts her own affair with the future prime minister of England, Charles Grey. Talk about a mess LOL.<\/p>\n

From the onset, the film\u2019s theme is similar to the recent The Tudors<\/em> series I watched the first two seasons of and blogged about here<\/a>: you get marriages for the sake of producing heirs, adultery, magnificent costumes and heaving bosoms.<\/p>\n

Thing is, I don\u2019t find many of these recent adulterous period dramas as interesting or memorable as the grandpapa of all such flicks \u2013 and that\u2019d be Dangerous Liaisons<\/em> of 1989. It\u2019s not merely a matter of the cast: Liaisons <\/em>had Michelle Pfeiffer, John Malkovich and Glenn Close \u2013 The Duchess<\/em> has Ralph Fiennes, Charlotte Rampling and Knightley \u2013 the latter whom can act once you put aside her distracting jaw.<\/p>\n

Nah – it\u2019s something else: and I think it\u2019s that none of these period dramas have the same story sophistication or definable characters as Liaisons <\/em>had. There\u2019re no surprises and only obvious twists in the story development in Duchess<\/em>. Whatever you\u2019re seeing, you\u2019ve seen before in other films.<\/p>\n

Knightley I don\u2019t especially enjoy watching, and Ralph Fiennes turns in a sort of low-key performance muttering and looking disinterested in his scenes though that\u2019s how his character is written.<\/p>\n

It was very nice though to see Charlotte Rampling in the film, and whom I remember from the small role she had in Deception<\/em>. She has a certain grace about herself and brings a degree of dignity and seriousness to films she\u2019s in.<\/p>\n

The costumes and production sets are a different matter though: they\u2019re incredible. I\u2019m not sure how much of it was CGed, but there\u2019s a scene where the newly married Duke and Duchess of Devonshire are in a horse carriage traveling through the city, and the bustling city is teeming with life and backdrop characters. There\u2019s also a scene involving the city of Bath \u2013 just stunning in the looks department.<\/p>\n

On the overall though, the film\u2019s watchable if period dramas, costumes and sets interests you. The film unfortunately didn\u2019t leave with with much of an impression and I had to stifle a yawn or two during the proceedings. For a different opinion, check out Ann\u2019s entry<\/a>.:)<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Duchess (2008) \u2013 on rental. British actress Keira Knightley seems to have settled into a persistent role based on the most recent films she\u2019s been in, and it\u2019s period dramas. There were those three Pirates of the Carribean movies,<\/p>\n

Read More The Duchess<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-home","category-entertainment","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-10-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}