The Duchess Critic Reviews
Metascore®:
Based upon 14 Critic Reviews- Highest Rated
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Princess Diana's antecedent, both genetically and figuratively, was a beautiful and glamorous duchess named Georgiana Spencer. Like her descendant, her charm and vivacity captivated England.Read the full review
It has impeccable production values but feels like a "Masterpiece Theater" production of a Harlequin romance novel.Read the full review
Instead of scintillation, the movie gives us a succession of discrete set pieces, as if the action takes place in rooms but not in the halls connecting them.Read the full review
It's too bad there's not more substance to The Duchess, because there's lots of acting and, as is required of a Brit-styled period piece, lushness galore.Read the full review
A serviceable picture that offers all the sumptuous visual pleasures of a historical costume drama, yet little in the way of actual history.Read the full review
Even surrounded by all this quality work, Ralph Fiennes, who plays William Cavendish, the fifth duke of Devonshire, the most powerful man in England next to the king, walks off with the picture.Read the full review
Keira Knightley is a terrific choice to play the 18th century socialite.Read the full review
Fiennes speaks with his body what the script cannot formulate about what it's like to be a man apart. The actor creates particulars of time, space, class, and personality with one crook of a finger, one twist of a wrist. I call that nobility of craft; he's the actors' prince.Read the full review
An overstuffed, intellectually underbaked portrait of a poor little rich girl.Read the full review
Thoroughly populist and middlebrow, full of all the high wigs, thick powder, perfect diction, and straightforward dialogue that define bodice-ripping prestige pictures about silently suffering souls.Read the full review
