"The Duchess"

What a tremendous disappointment! If you enjoy 18th Ct. history and culture, don’t be tempted to see this movie. Unless you are satisfied with merely looking at Keira Knightley in period costume for two hours, beware! I was not just bored, I was not just annoyed, I was mad. Mad about how this film turned a strong, exiting woman, who pushed boundaries where she found them, into the exact opposite, namely a sweet, doe-eyed victim, who suffered her fate without fighting it. By showing her weak and helpless, the movie did her (and women in general) great injustice.
The picture had one positive aspect, it made me very curious about all the historical facts that it did not bother with. I ordered the book the film's based on, "Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire" by Amanda Foreman. It's actually a lot juicier than the movie, which is a sanitized, streamlined interpretation with its eye very much on the story of Charles and Di. For the sake of analogy, it compromised the character of the Duchess, who had a lot more spunk & imagination & brain than Diana.
Harper Collin’s synopsis of Foreman's book:
"Sex, intrigue and adultery in the world of high politics and huge wealth in late eighteenth-century England. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire was one of the most flamboyant and influential women of the eighteenth century. The great-great-great-great aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales, she was variously a compulsive gambler, a political savante and operator of the highest order, a drug addict, an adulteress and the darling of the common people. This authoritative, utterly absorbing book presents a mesmerizing picture of a fascinating world of political and sexual intrigues, grand houses, huge parties, glamour and great wealth -- always on the edge of being squandered by the excesses and scandals of individuals."