The Duchess
A restrained portrayal from Knightley, a masterclass in passive aggression from Fiennes and a performance of tender seduction from Atwell
If you've seen the posters for The Duchess, you'll know that they recall the marital woes of another Spencer, Princess Diana. Born two centuries earlier, Georgiana Spencer (Keira Knightley), is the young noble whose tempestuous marriage in 1774 to William, Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes) is the subject of this intelligent and beautifully crafted costume drama from British director Saul Dibb. Georgiana is a young, beautiful bride who marries into one of the country's richest families and suffers domestic misery, while blossoming into a fashion icon and friend of the chattering classes. William is older, colder, a piercer of dreams who's more loving to his dog than his wife and who openly introduces a mistress (Hayley Atwell) into his household.
We're not expected to impose 21stcentury ideals of marriage on Georgiana and William, but to empathise with their situation while considering contemporary personal freedoms. Dibb pays as much, if not more, attention to the private stresses of the bedroom as he does to the public rituals of dinners and balls. He's also helped enormously by a mature, restrained portrayal from Knightley, a masterclass in passive aggression from Fiennes and a performance of tender seduction from Atwell.